X 




Glass _ 
Book- 



An Epoch 
in the Spiritual Life 



By . 
CHARLES NEWMAN CURTIS 




NEW YORK; EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI! JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



/A 






'! Two Copies rteco' - 

APR 9 ^908 



Copyright, 1908, bf 
EATON & MAINS. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I PAGE 

The Moral Law i 

Introductory statements — ^Jesus' statement of 
the law — Nature and source of the moral law — 
God a law to himself; his holiness — ^Answer to 
an objection to the validity of the law of love — 
Moral law, any natural law binding on a moral 
being — The Ten Commandments in harmony 
with the preceding ideas — Statute law: its rela- 
tion to moral law — Example of a correct legisla- 
tive enactment — Obedience to law. 

CHAPTER II 
Definitions of Sin ^^ 

The moral law not lowered to accommodate sin- 
ful man — The two standards of perfection- 
Different conceptions of salvation — Bearing or 
attitudes toward the moral law — Definition of 
sin (A) as an act — Sin (Ai) a voluntary trans- 
gression of a known law — Sin (A2) an involun- 
tary transgression — Sin (A3) in the Christian's 
lapses or falls — Sin (A4) in unconcerned or care- 
less self-seeking — Sin (A 5) or failures of the irre- 
sponsible — The devil's sin — The unpardonable 
sin — Temptation, or three steps into sin — Living 
without sin — Biological view of sin. 

CHAPTER III 

Inbred Sin: Its Nature and Removal 79 

Seventh Article of Religion — Meaning of inbred 
sin: names for it — In what sense sin? — Nature 
of inbred sin — An erroneous view — Removal of 
inbred sin— rProof that not all is destroyed: i. 
The subconscious not known. 2. Consciousness 
iii 



iv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

cannot testify to a theory. 3. Adamic perfection 
admitted to be impossible. 4. State of the entirely 
sanctified man who falls. 5. Lack of clear agree- 
ment — Propensity and susceptibility — Another 
statement of what is removed. 

CHAPTER IV 

Inbred Sin Enlarged by Practice 122 

Acquired sin or depravity — Its removal — Some 
inbred sin may be removed at regeneration — 
Transmission of good traits — Ignorance of God 
and of moral requirements in part dispelled — 
Temperament — Remaining effects of sin — ^When 
are all abolished? — Fitness for heaven. 

CHAPTER V 

Inbred Sin and Infirmities 153 

Eradication or suppression — Infirmities. 

CHAPTER VI 

Full Salvation Psychologically Described 168 

Meaning of sanctification briefly stated — Biblical 
use of terms different from theological use — 
Constitution and character — ^Justification and 
regeneration briefly noticed — Sanctification: the 
problem — The human side — ^The divine side — 
The positive side more important than the 
negative — Perfect love. 

CHAPTER VII 

Full Salvation: Other Ways of Describing. ... 215 
In terms of doing and being — From the stand- 
point of evolution — The racial impairment on 
this view— The divine work same as previously 
set forth — Our view supported by ethical and 
philosophical truth — ^Jesus Christ the only Sav- 
iour, or love as the sole principle and center of 
organization — A fourth description: the resolu- 
tion of dual'sm into unity. 



CONTENTS V 

CHAPTER VIII „,^^ 

PAGE 

Full Salvation: Supplementary Points; Propo- 
sitions 240 

Possible dangers or perplexities — ^The witness of 
the Spirit — Possible deficiencies of the fully saved 
man — ^A phase of the work not to be described 
— Strife between intellect and emotions — Essen- 
tial elements of full salvation — Outlines — Propo- 
sitions. 

CHAPTER IX 

Errors 274 

Lax ethical conduct and low standards of honor 
— Ignoring the law of cause and efiEect. 

CHAPTER X 

Growth After Full Salvation 280 

General view — Temperament — Rationalism, piet- 
ism, and mysticism — Their great manifestations 
in religious life and history — Mysticism — Indi- 
vidual experiences — Specific lines of growth — 
Comprehensiveness of religion — Experience of 
Phillips Brooks. 

Index 325 



PREFACE 

This volume contains the substance of the first 
three addresses delivered before Troy Conference at 
Saratoga Springs, New York, in April, 1907. They 
have been expanded very much in order to treat the 
different sides of the subject which must be pre- 
sented if it is discussed at all. These talks by special 
request were for exposition rather than exhortation ; 
their aim was to give light rather than heat; to 
describe the higher Christian life in clear terms, if 
possible, and to help those who are hesitating, un- 
certain, and confused about it. The purpose has 
been to set forth distinctly a definite experience or 
stage in the religious life; to move toward common 
ground on which many advocates of this life may 
agree; and also to present a method of research 
whereby more truth may be ascertained. A knowl- 
edge of this subject gained from many sermons and 
from works by different writers is assumed in the 
reader — as it existed in the hearers — and also of the 
Scripture passages usually quoted in support of cer- 
tain positions. Accordingly, much that is common 
to treatises on this doctrine could be omitted, and a 
full and complete treatment of the Christian life has 
not been attempted. 

The first chapter, on law, is not closely connected 
with the remainder of the book, but furnishes a 
world view as a foundation for the necessity and 
the building of the Christian character ; it presents 

vii 



viii PREFx\CE 

a conception of the divine law which grounds itself 
deep in nature. The hurried reader, who wants the 
simplest statement and chiefly the part immediately 
applicable to life, avoiding theories, should, after 
examining the introductory statements, read the 
second chapter from the page on attitudes toward 
the moral law, and the third chapter ; about infirmi- 
ties in the fifth chapter; then read the sixth, eighth, 
and tenth chapters. 

The author is indebted to many preachers and 
writers on this subject for help ; proper acknowledg- 
ment by name seems impossible. His thanks are due 
and are heartily extended to all earnest thinkers and 
to all godly men and women who by their teaching 
have aided him, and who by their lives have inspired 
him to think "on these things'' and to walk in this 
way. 

Charles Newman Curtis, 

Rutland, Vt., January 24, 1908. 



CHAPTER I 

The Moral Law 

preliminary statements 

In recent years the study of religion and religions 
has increased and produced fruitful results. In- 
vestigations into the world of mind are pushed for- 
ward now with alacrity and the faith which marked 
the great discoveries of the nineteenth century in 
the material world. Confidence in the scientific 
method has grown so great that it is being applied 
to the spiritual world; only a few years ago some 
even thought that scientific progress in comprehend- 
ing nature's forces would cure all the ills of the race. 
Great masses of facts in the religious life of the 
various races have been brought to light ; these con- 
tribute a big chapter to the understanding of the 
needs of the human soul, its aspirations and pos- 
sibilities, and greatly enlarge one's view of God's 
dealings with the race. Many facts of Christian 
experience also have been collected, and it is not 
necessary to-day to extol the value of the study of 
religious biography. Facts of the religious life in 
young and old, in the Christian and in the heathen 
convert, are so numerous that one can almost 
arrange a series of experiences from youth to old 
age; and the time when attention will be given to 
the study of comparative biography is drawing near. 



2 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Psychology has been collecting a vast number of 
facts and penetrating deeper into the secrets of 
mental and spiritual life than men of previous ages 
have been able to go. More is known of the rela- 
tion of mind and body, of the functions of the brain 
and nervous system, than in former generations. 
Even the psychology of races and crowds, including 
religious congregations, has been receiving some 
attention. Furthermore, better methods of investi- 
gation are common now than John Wesley knew — 
better methods in the study of mind, in physical 
science, and in historical research. 

All these considerations drive candid Christian 
thinkers to attempt a restatement of all of the 
soul's life in more definite form and in clearer 
language. It is right that workers of to-day should 
follow Wesley's spirit thoroughly ; he himself would 
condemn them for sticking slavishly to his words 
after more light had come. He was a pioneer and 
in advance of his age in thought and practice. The 
Christian Church now needs to take advantage of 
this new knowledge, of the new methods of re- 
search, and of the best pedagogical principles and 
means for helping young and old into the best 
religious experience attainable in this life. There 
is enough well-arranged knowledge of soul life at 
the present time to enable one to affirm that certain 
fundamental religious states or experiences are 
about alike for all. The aim is to pass from the 
life of the natural man to the Christ life by the 
shortest and quickest route; to be transformed 
from a selfish life to a life of love. 



THE MORAL LAW 3 

Much of the terminology of the past has been un- 
fortunate and misleading. It is not wise to clothe 
truth in words people will surely misunderstand; 
this method has made enemies for a true and useful 
doctrine of Christian experience. The teaching has 
been couched in such terms that many people could 
not receive it; they have turned away dissatisfied 
while hungering for a higher life. The ordinary 
man knows nothing of three or four different kinds 
of perfection or five or six resurrections. He only 
knows one perfection, perhaps not that; it is per- 
fect; he regards with suspicion any kind of perfec- 
tion which is imperfect, that is, below the ideal. 
The confusion about the word"sin/'and living with- 
out sin, and the destruction of all sin, and about a 
lowered standard of the law so that sin- weakened 
humanity can keep it perfectly, has caused lengthy 
and needless verbose debates without promoting 
piety. Thoughtful Christian leaders are seeking a 
"common denominator" in religious experience. 
'Tove is the fulfilling of the law'' ; that is the essence 
of practical religion. But there is no Baptist love 
or Methodist or Roman Catholic love any more 
than there is Presbyterian or Episcopal chemistry; 
there is simply chemistry according to nature, love 
according to God. There is a deeper unity in the 
inner Christian life than is possible in the outward 
organization or federation of organizations. Peo- 
ple need to talk about the inner spiritual life, as 
about educational methods and values, in terms 
which stand for well-known realities and have a 
definite meaning. The wider the acceptance of 



4 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

these terms by scholars and by workers of all de- 
nominations, the clearer will become the concepts 
of the realities which they represent, and in time 
the wider will be their acceptance outside the 
church. Some old nomenclature should be allowed 
to fall into "innocuous desuetude" or be relegated 
to the scrap heap of the obsolete. 

A new alignment in the way of regarding and 
describing religious experience would be welcomed. 
Religious teachers must examine again with pains- 
taking care the facts of soul life, search Scripture 
statements of doctrine and experience, revise and 
adapt their teaching to real life, to young life and 
the needs of the people. They must put new life 
and meaning into the old forms and discover new 
forms for the new life of the spirit. New religious 
phraseology is needed every century in order to 
avoid cant and the repetition of meaningless 
phrases. New ways of stating the truth of re- 
generation and sanctification will be needed when- 
ever scholars get new truth in psychology, that is, 
larger and clearer apprehensions of the soul's life, 
new concepts of God or his mode of working in 
nature and in history, and a deeper appreciation of 
the Christ. 

Nevertheless it should be well understood that 
he who studies in the new and broadening field of 
the religious life, elated by a haughty or self- 
sufficient spirit and the importance of a new 
method, must remember always that he studies here 
not to destroy, but to fulfill ; not to cut loose from 
the truth known in the past or from the sane expe- 



THE MORAL LAW S 

rience of godly people, but to add to the knowledge 
and attainments of the past the larger truth and the 
wider vision of the present. The wise builder 
builds higher and stronger, but he builds on the 
foundation already laid, ''Jesus Christ himself be- 
ing the chief corner stone." This treatise is largely 
couched in the familiar terms and form of the past 
so as somewhat to meet the needs of those accus- 
tomed to the Wesleyan phraseology; there is no 
wish here to break with the past. The description 
of the Christian life for the coming generation has 
not yet been w^ritten using new terms, forms, and 
alignment with the nomenclature of modern psy- 
chology, child-study, and the pedagogical outlook 
of recent years. 

The author is not equal now to the task marked 
out here, but his purpose is to point out the possi- 
bilities of research in the field of the religious 
nature and life of man; to interest Christian work- 
ers in understanding, attaining, and in promoting 
in others the most complete transformation into 
Christlikeness attainable in this life. No special 
theory is to be presented or combated, but the aim 
is to encourage the method of looking at all facts in 
this rich and varied form of life, as well vindicated 
to-day as any field of physical research, as the biol- 
ogist looks at his facts, and then to draw only such 
conclusions as the facts clearly warrant. The sub- 
ject to be treated in this manner might be called 
steps in the appropriation of salvation, or, stages in 
the transformation of sinful man into the likeness 
of Christ his Saviour. It is a legitimate subject of 



6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

inquiry whether this work is done at once by a 
single stroke or whether it is done slowly and many 
steps are discernible in the process. It is not possi- 
ble here to cover the whole ground of a lifetime full 
of religious experience; therefore a small section 
of this life is selected in the regenerated man striv- 
ing after the full renewal of his nature in the image 
of God at about that period called the reception of 
full salvation. It will be most profitable to keep 
close to nature and biography rather than to dwell 
on metaphysical theories, like the theory of original 
sin. Theories are not useful for the beginner; let 
him know in a concrete simple way, comprehensible 
to him, what Christ can do for him, if he trusts 
and obeys. Speculations should be deferred till 
afterward, and a long time afterward for many 
busy toilers. Notwithstanding this, on account of the 
previous treatment and implications of this subject 
some portion (Chapters III to V) must deal with the 
abstract and metaphysical. Scripture is to be re- 
spected and treated in the light of modern research, 
with due regard for its connection, historical set- 
ting, and grammatical meaning; a verse here and 
there is not to be selected at random and hitched 
to others as *'proof texts'' to maintain a particular 
view. The evidence is not all in yet; one cannot 
make all the affirmations and denials he would like 
on the subject, and have scientific value in them, 
until more facts of the religious biography of the 
ages are collected and sifted. One wishes to trans- 
late the historical gospel into the psychological gos- 
pel and thus to get the eternal religion. 'The trans- 



THE MORAL LAW 7 

ference, however, of Christianity from the region 
of history to the region of psychology is the great 
craving of our time."^ A science of the spiritual 
life is possible. ''Science is knowledge in the forms 
of exact observation, precise definitions, fixed ter- 
minology, classified arrangement, and rational ex- 
planation." There is an art in spiritual living ; both 
the science and the art are necessary. 

THE MORAL LAW 

The view of the moral law here given is not 
necessarily bound up with the view of full salvation 
to be presented; nor does the latter stand or fall 
with the former. Jesus' statement of the law of 
love is this: ''Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind. This is the first and great command- 
ment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two com- 
mandments hang all the law and the prophets" 
(Matt. 22. 37-40). 

This is the real or material principle of the law. 
The formal principle is that *'a reasonable being 
ought to act reasonably." This is the statement 
only of the general principle comprehending all 
specific commands. Just how one would act in par- 
ticular cases, if he loved his neighbor as himself, 
it does not tell us. The parable of the good Samari- 
tan was given in part to throw light on that point. 

This law seems to have been conceived in the past 
often as a trivial and narrowly personal edict, and 

1 Amiel, Journal Intime, p. 148. 



8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

embodied in forms which are hardly worthy of it. 
God's law centuries ago was commonly compared to 
the edicts of an absolute and irresponsible Oriental 
monarch, capricious and often vicious. In the time 
of the firm belief in the divine right of kings, 
analogies between God's government and human 
governments were common and, as is now believed, 
misleading in theology. The view that the divine 
law issues from the will of God and is a command 
of absolute sovereignty or arbitrariness conceived 
apart from reason is not the best view; in many 
quarters it has passed away. In more recent times 
the divine law has been compared with the more 
enlightened and just enactments of the assembled 
representatives of the people. This is an improve- 
ment on the old view, because more reason and de- 
liberation are admitted in the process of lawmaking, 
but not the best view. God's law has been compared 
to statute law, and very poor specimens too; doc- 
trines of pardon have been built around this concep- 
tion of law and the practices of human courts of jus- 
tice. It is far better to compare God's work in one 
realm of being with his work in another realm ; this 
will give a better comprehension of the whole ; it has 
not been possible till the accumulation of the knowl- 
edge of nature brought to us by the preceding cen- 
tury. This law of love, then, to the opening eyes 
of modern man, appears as a great law or eternal 
principle of reason between finite spirits and be- 
tween finite spirits and the Infinite Spirit, unaltera- 
ble, far-reaching, and all-embracing, like the great 
uniform actions of God in nature. Much theology 



THE MORAL LAW 9 

is to be rewritten under the conception of the reason 
of God regulating the will of God, of the father- 
hood of God along with the sovereignty of God, of 
the idea of law in the spiritual world as a necessity 
of obligation in accordance with which all normal 
spirits always act, as law in the physical world is a 
necessity of compulsion in accordance with which 
planets in their orbits and atoms in their chemical 
combinations always act. 

This general principle or ground of all command- 
ments, as stated by Jesus, is to be thought of as 
possessing validity for all intelligent free spirits. It 
is not optional, it is not merely good advice ; it has 
reality in the spiritual world as gravity has in the 
physical world. The notion, too widespread, that 
this law may be kept or not at pleasure, trifled with 
or dodged without evil consequences beyond the 
power of man to estimate, must be dismissed at 
once. This law always existed in the reason of 
God; it was expressed in the constitution of the 
universe, when the universe was gaseous and ^'with- 
out form and void." It existed in the constitution 
and innermost core of man since there was a man ; 
it is in his being as well as over it. It is not arbi- 
trary; in source it is like all natural law; it is like 
natural law in that it is a truth of reason known as 
regulative of power; yet the power in this case is 
a free will. It exists eternally in the reason of God. 
It is uncreated and uncreatable ; it cannot be abro- 
gated or modified or annihilated without changing 
or annihilating free spirits conscious of such law. 
It cannot be broken or violated without dire conse- 



10 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

quences to the actor and untold suffering to other 
members of the moral system. No man or congress 
can create, annul, or modify a moral law any more 
than they can any ''inflexible law of nature/' This 
law of love is a necessary law for the existence of 
persons in conscious knowledge of each other. It 
is involved in the being as soon as the being is cre- 
ated or ''evolved'^ ; it is not superinduced upon it 
or made after the being is made. This law is also 
necessitated in the coexistence of a number of sim- 
ilar persons in a moral system in conscious knowl- 
edge of each other ; they cannot exist without rela- 
tions the one to the other ; the relation must eventu- 
ally be that of love or hate. It is as fundamentally 
necessary for the community of moral beings as 
gravity or cohesion or some arrangement to regulate 
the particles of matter to each other in a cosmos. 

It is possible to illustrate in several ways how 
laws or conditions of best existence arise with the 
creation of a being either by the development of an 
organ of such a being or by the construction of a 
manufactured article. The eye of man will furnish 
a good example. Its purpose is to open a door 
through which the objects of the outer world may 
excite and impress the mind. The impressions on 
the end organ made by external objects must be 
conveyed to the brain cells in such a way that the 
result will be sense-perception. Without referring 
to the correlation of brain tissue and mind, this is 
effected by a nerve, the optic nerve connecting an 
end organ with a certain tract of the brain. Deli- 
cate as such a nerve must be, it is spread out after 



THE MORAL LAW n 

reaching the eye into a nerve-fiber layer, one of the 
ten layers of the retina, sensitive to light but not 
to touch or to taste. Two humors and a crystalline 
lens are necessary; also a dark chamber arranged 
to allow the entrance of more or less light accord- 
ing to the demands of clear sight. The lens must 
focus the rays of light from objects near or far 
at one point of the retina. The structure and work 
of the eye is partly determined by optical laws like 
the reflection and refraction of light, the laws of 
color and the like, and partly by the needs and 
conditions of the organism. Various coats, mem- 
branes, and muscles are necessary; and nutrition 
must be constantly supplied by proper circulation of 
the blood. All the complex and delicate conditions 
needful to enable the eye to do its work properly, 
or to be an eye, constitute its laws; they are 
numerous and unescapable. If the use of the eye 
contrary to these laws or external force break up 
the harmonious action of the various parts, its func- 
tion as an eye is impaired or ended. While there 
is a uniform way in which the eye must act, ascer- 
tained by investigation, variation is possible within 
certain limits. It may withstand slight injuries or 
violations of law, for nutrition or medical skill may 
provide a remedy; for other injuries there is no 
remedy. 

This origin of law in a physical organ is a more 
or less fitting picture of the rise of law in a human 
soul. Though the soul has no ''parts,'' is not a 
physical being, it has functions to perform and is an 
orderly being constructed on a plan. It has laws in 



12 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

it breathed out of the Eternal Reason along with its 
innermost nature. It could not exist as a finite 
spirit capable of thought and choice and be at the 
same time in a state of chaos. Surely the mind has 
accomplished enough in the world to convince men 
that it has order in its essence; that it has higher 
and more complex and delicate laws than any 
physical being can have. The mind of man is a 
more complex being than a mind which can only 
receive impressions through the senses and preserve 
those impressions and think or reason only about 
concrete objects, possessing no abstract ideas and 
no language. Moral law, or will law, is necessary 
to the very being of a soul as a free agent; obedi- 
ence to that law is necessary to its well-being. 

This law of love, by necessity of the reason of the 
Creator and of the reason of the finite spirit, off- 
spring of the Universal Reason, was involved in the 
finite spirit at its birth. Whenever its conscious- 
ness met the gaze of a similar consciousness, an 
attitude was taken in or out of harmony with this 
law. When the Creator said, "Let there be light," 
there was light, with its consequent conditions or 
laws of reflection, refraction, velocity, polarization, 
and spectrum analysis. When the Creator said, 
*'Let us make man," a soul was breathed out of the 
unseen eternal nature of the divine being; deep 
and ineradicable in its constitution was the law of 
love. The human spirit collected itself together — 
quickly or slowly, it matters not — as a separate 
substance, yet dependent on its Maker ; a spirit was 
thus stiffened into existence with its consequent 



THE MORAL LAW 13 

powers of self-consciousness, thought, and free will. 
The law of love was then born on the earth; and 
when the finite spirit takes its proper attitude 
toward the Infinite Spirit by fulfilling this law, it 
is thrilled with the profoundest emotions; it is 
hushed into quiet and an incomprehensible peace 
with a rapture unspeakable. 

Law for the will, or moral law, is as indispensable 
and valid as law for the intellect. Laws of intel- 
lect are stated in works on psychology and logic, 
and are commonly recognized as necessary, like 
''laws of nature.'' If the mind would ascertain 
truth, it must think in harmony with the laws of 
thought. Three of these laws are known as the 
law of identity, of contradiction, and of excluded 
middle. The law of the association of ideas is 
another. The categories of thought and axioms of 
mathematics are good instances of law; space and 
time are fixed thought forms ever present. All 
these laws or uniform modes of behavior are in the 
mind, part of its furniture and part of itself; they 
are not superinduced upon it after its creation. 
There is nothing in the mind, said Locke, except 
what comes through the senses; to which Leibnitz 
replied. Nothing except the mind itself. It re- 
inforces or gives grip to the laws of free will to 
think of them in the light of the foregoing state- 
ments. Law for the will is as important and 
obligatory as a law of intellect ; though the will, the 
mind acting in the capacity of choosing, may accord 
or withhold obedience by virtue of its nature, if it 
refuses obedience the results are as disastrous or 



14 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

more so than if the same soul acting in the capacity 
of knowing refuses to think in harmony with the 
laws of thought. If one thinks a triangle certain 
properties or relations come into existence with it; 
if it be a right-angled triangle some relations will 
be different from those of the equilateral triangle. 
Likewise, if a free will is called into existence, laws 
are made zvith and in it; the contrary is unthink- 
able. *'Will is that power by which we choose the 
object toward which we will direct our energy, and 
the direction of our energy with reference to that 
object." Such a will must be free; that there is 
such a power in man we assume without argument. 
According to the best light obtainable one may 
affirm that there have ever existed in the Supreme 
Intelligence those ideals and principles of reason in 
accordance with which a universe must be con- 
structed, if it ever be made actual. These principles 
or truths are known as regulative of all action or 
creation. These are laws, or ideals of spirit, which 
underlie all thinkable or possible as well as all actual 
worlds. If a physical or moral system be realized in 
time and space, these forms must appear as laws 
in it. If the universe once existed only in the mind 
of God, he knew that when it became an actuality 
it would be in accordance with the principles of 
mathematics and physics, which were his ideals for 
the inanimate world. He also knew that the free 
spirit ''in his image" could only exist in its best 
estate in harmony with the law of love; for ''God 
is love." This is one of the ideals or norms in the 
mind of the Creator exhibited in the constitution of 



THE MORAL LAW iS 

the human spirit quite as truly as any mathematical 
principle exhibited in the construction of the solar 
system. *'The Lord which stretched out the 
heavens and laid the foundations of the earth also 
formed the spirit within man." The same rank-^ 
or a higher one — in the creative mind is claimed 
for the law of love as for any mathematical prin- 
ciple; this law must be in force whenever a world 
of free intelligent spirits is called into being. This 
is the inner law between a free agent and its 
Maker. 

Further, the existence of a free spirit in relation 
to other similar spirits gives rise to this law ; these 
beings must love or hate each other ; indifference is 
only a mild form of hate and is likely to descend 
into veritable hatred at any time. They must take 
attitudes for or against each other ; hence the abso- 
lute unescapableness of the moral law. This is its 
social side or origin which a man must admit, even 
if he deny the existence of God and the immortality 
of the soul. For this life people are bound to live 
in the relation of helping or hindering the gratifica- 
tion of each other's wants. 

Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst says: ^'The soul is as 
full of moral laws as the body is of nerves and the 
.air of sunbeams. They are all shot from the Sun 
of Righteousness. There is a great moral system, 
if we have but the eyes to see it, the sublime counter- 
part of the system astronomic and cosmic; and for 
a man to beat out into a track of his own is much 
the same as for the planet Mars to jump its celestial 
orbit or for the sun to scatter off its dependent 



i6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

planets, strike across lots, and go bounding against 
the busy worlds that sweep the remoter spaces." 

God is law to himself; what is truth to his reason 
is law to his will. And when he acts he uniformly 
acts and deals with all beings in accordance with 
the truths and ideals of his reason. There is no 
variation in his behavior. In this persistent choice 
is manifested the holiness of God, which is deep- 
seated in his being; as an attribute it is compre- 
hended in his love. When appearing in interaction 
with created moral beings it is called righteousness. 
Some may ask, If holiness is manifested only in 
action in a universe, how was God holy before there 
were any created intelligences, if such time ever 
was ? He was holy in the personal relations of the 
triune godhead. He was holy in that as he thought 
— speaking from the time standpoint of human 
beings — or planned action to come, he thought, felt, 
and knew it could and would only be action in 
accordance with the ideals and norms of his reason. 
No other possible action could be allowed. If man 
had by his choice always made the truths and ideals 
of his reason his law of action, or his uniform mode 
of behavior, and if he had had the truth always in 
the spiritual realm, he would have been holy in his 
measure as God is holy. Having failed to do this, 
nothing is left to him but to seek pardon and the 
regaining or the perfecting of holiness through the 
Christ, the Man who always obeyed reason. 

Some may oppose to this idea of law the great 
fact of sin that there is so little uniform action in 
the spiritual world in harmony with the moral law. 



THE MORAL LAW 17 

Physical law is a ^'mathematical statement of the 
uniform mode of behavior of certain physical 
beings." In the vegetable world there is physical 
law, but not often capable of mathematical state- 
ment as in the inorganic world. Free will on the 
earth has failed to give the uniform mode of 
behavior demanded by its law, the law of love. 
This to many minds makes the law of love seem of 
little consequence and of no force ; it is mere advice 
and may be trampled under foot at will. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth, though this law 
is not a law for a necessitated but a free being. 
The fault is not in the law but in the being under 
the law. Given a perfectly holy being, always holy, 
the uniform action follows as certainly as a grain of 
sand obeys gravity. Moral law is uniform action 
in a moral soul, wholly moral, always moral or 
holy. In Jesus of Nazareth there were always 
action, thought, and speech in conformity with the 
law of love; he exhibited the uniform mode of 
behavior without the slightest aberration. His con- 
duct, as uniform as the stars in their orbits, was 
the result not of compulsion but of free choice. He 
would no more take a wrong attitude in spirit 
toward his "Father in heaven" or toward his neigh- 
bor than he would say that the whole is greater than 
any of its parts. Wherever a soul is found highly 
enough organized to live out its plan, there uniform 
action in harmony with the law of love always 
obtains. It always prevailed from all eternity in 
the relations or attitudes of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit. It always prevails among the beings 



i8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

who inhabit heaven ; failure to Hve in keeping with 
this law destroys heaven ; obedience to this will-law, 
or conscience-law, on earth or elsewhere will pro- 
duce heaven. 

Moral law is any inner law known by a moral 
being to be binding on itself. Physical laws which 
he should obey, or laws of health, when properly 
understood, become moral laws to man. The same 
law to a nonmoral being living under it is not moral 
law. The laws or the best conditions of the diges- 
tion of food or the best conditions of eyesight for 
a dog or horse are about the same as for man. To 
the dog or horse they are not moral laws; viola- 
tions of them by the horse may bring pain but not 
a sense of guilt, shame, or remorse. To the man 
who understands them they are moral laws because 
he is a moral being and, if properly instructed, he 
knows his body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
God expects men who have sufficient knowledge to 
do so to keep the ''laws of health." Moral law 
includes the sum of the conditions of best existence 
of intelligent free agents in a society, and of these 
free agents in communion with their Maker. Moral 
law in the perfect man is uniform action without 
outer compulsion or necessity. 

The conception of law here advanced puts reli- 
gion on as firm a basis as the soul itself. It shows 
the standard which the race must attain sometime 
and somewhere, or sin's damage will forever 
remain. Moral laws are not dictates of arbitrary 
power or mere commands fitted to the infantile con- 
dition of the race, which must pass away in time; 



THE MORAL LAW 19 

nor are they merely enactments or precepts in a 
book. Being in the constitution of the soul, in- 
volved in the coexistence of members as a social 
organism of free spirits, they are as universal as 
human nature and will not pass away until man 
passes away. Let this law be described and felt in 
its majesty and power as God's work in creation, 
then its greatness and grip can compel the atten- 
tion and should secure the allegiance of the heart. 
It is over and above all other natural laws like a 
queen ; in God both as obligation and action corre- 
sponding the uniform procedure of love has never 
been violated and has never wavered a moment. 
Here is unescapable authority for religion in this 
age which perhaps will have no other. The 
authority of the church is not regarded ; the Pope's 
authority is gone; the authority of the Bible with 
too many classes is weakened; respect for the de- 
crees of church councils is not deep or widespread; 
these forms of authority or faith may or may not 
return. It is increasingly difficult to induce people 
to revere a law which they believe is law only 
because written in a book which criticism, as they 
suppose, may cut into segments. People in general 
will not be profoundly moved to obey a law which, 
' as they imagine, the discovery of some new manu- 
script or the change in an author's name or date 
may overthrow; or which the change of a half- 
dozen votes in some religious assembly will un- 
settle. Men must be made to see that the laws of 
spiritual life, those proclaimed and enforced by 
religion, are inwoven in their nature, made binding 



20 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

by the presence of other members of family and 
nation, and absolutely unescapable as the air they 
breathe. On this law of love all creeds and races 
can unite. On the life and religious experience of 
Jesus Christ, because it was absolutely normal and 
in harmony with all the laws of spirit, all can unite. 
He is the everlasting authority in religion, the 
authority of a living sympathetic soul who has in 
himself the best life and has it to communicate; 
who is the model for all other souls and is a quick- 
ening and life-giving Spirit. What this life means 
when modernized, manifested under the manifold 
conditions of present society, can be settled for any 
particular age by careful and painstaking study of 
the principles of religion, ethics, psychology, and 
sociology. On the essentials of such a life, when 
the channels for it are marked out for a particular 
century, all right-minded people can unite. They 
will be '^of the way" and followers of Him who is 
the *'way." Those living such lives will form a 
brotherhood. Men may choose, oftentimes, foul 
air or pure air to breathe, but breathe they must 
by order of nature. Likewise free intelligent spirits 
cannot alter or avoid the fact of a relation either 
of good will or enmity toward other spirits. 

Tremble, O man, at the laws within thee ; for thy 
spirit is ''fearfully and wonderfully made.'' Be 
astonished and fear exceedingly, for thou canst not 
change by one jot or tittle thy necessitated coexist- 
ence with other similar spirits. Thou art pressed as 
in a vise to take the attitude of love or hate toward 
thy Creator and all whom thou knowest; to live in 



THE MORAL LAW ^t 

accordance with thy highest nature and best law 
or to fall under the domain of force and to submit 
to clashing and confusion. Truth known as regula- 
tive of action is at the innermost core of thy being; 
for thou proceedest from the Eternal and Absolute 
Reason, who is also love. Thou, too, must love or 
be undone. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

What has this view to do with the Ten Com- 
mandments? All these commandments may be 
summed up in two, according to Jesus' statement; 
and these two constitute the real or material princi- 
ple of the law. The commandments are so many 
specifications to show man what the law of love 
means. The first man or prehistoric man at some 
stage of development knew what the law was, or 
some divine requirement, far enough to obey clear- 
ly or to disobey. This is the teaching of revelation. 
Man had either an inner light or outward revelation 
sufficient for him at first ; the consciousness of duty 
and of God's presence and friendship was sufficient- 
ly clear. But man went astray in this light, as beau- 
tifully pictured in the book of Genesis. Then he 
felt a loss of friendship with God; love in man 
was banished, fear ruled, knowledge of the divine 
law of love became very dim, his ''foolish heart was 
darkened," and he groped in the darkness of sen- 
suality and idolatry and groveled in the black gloom 
and depravation of hatred, warrings, and abomina- 
ble vices. In the fullness of time God by a new and 
outward revelation showed man his true law again ; 



^2 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

and also by the promise of leaders, and especially 
of a Saviour to come, God inspired his people to 
strive to regain the lost kingdom of righteousness, 
the lost paradise. 

The Ten Commandments and the jurist's defini- 
tion of law are entirely in harmony v^ith the ideas 
thus far set forth. Austin says : ''Law is a rule laid 
down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an 
intelligent being having power over it. Every law 
or rule is a command." This does not contradict 
the idea of law already advocated. It is easily pos- 
sible that a rule of conduct for a being laid down 
by a superior being, or another being having 
authority over it, should be in the nature of the 
former and be discovered or announced, or both, by 
the reason of the latter. That the commands of 
Deity to man are such laws has been maintained, 
and that they are in accordance with his reason and 
man's nature and reason. The view of law pre- 
sented in these pages does not conflict with the 
jurist's definition of law for man; it simply traces 
the same command or rule back to its source. Man 
thus gains further insight into the validity and 
nature of the laws announced to him. The divine 
commandments seem invested with a new and 
relentless grip. 

Some have written as if they thought that the 
Ten Commandments were given to man to see if 
he would keep them; that they sprang from the 
will of God instead of his reason, are arbitrary 
and others might have done as well. We hold that 
the law of which the Ten Commandments are so 



THE MORAL LAW 23 

many specifications is far more fundamental than 
mere edicts of power or arbitrary sovereignty. 
Alan had gone so far from God, or, some may 
prefer to say, had risen so Httle from the animal 
life below, that he knew not the law of love; and 
God in the time of Moses interpreted man to him- 
self by giving him specific directions as to how to 
treat God and his neighbor, if man wished to obey 
the law of love, the most fundamental principle of 
his spiritual being, and to have spiritual and national 
prosperity. Man could not then understand, nor 
did he fifteen hundred years afterward, what the 
real law was. Scholars disputed about which was 
the great commandment; they could not settle the 
question. For a long time they regarded the cere- 
monial law as equally important with the moral law. 
When they put the question to Christ, his clear con- 
sciousness of right and wrong and his intuition of 
spiritual worths and duties answered it so quickly 
and concisely that no other answer has ever been 
needed. The moral law was not made or announced 
for the first time on Mount Sinai ; it existed before 
Sinai and before the rocks of Sinai cooled. God 
was telling man with thunderings and lightnings 
what man's nature and God's reason demanded of 
him, impressing him in such a way as to start the 
race on an upward track toward the knowledge of 
its true law and obedience to it. The chosen people 
in their sore need received from God a revelation 
of this highest law within themselves, not for their 
benefit alone but that their knowledge and the prac- 
tice of righteousness might be extended to the whole 



24 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

race. God did not at that time reveal a knowledge 
of the laws of logic, geometry, or electricity; man 
could wait till he worked these out. 

STATUTE LAW 

What is the relation to the divine law in man 
of the statutes and enactments of kings and legis- 
latures? They cannot "make" law; they can only 
announce it and affix penalty, after they discover 
by investigation what regulations are needed in 
particular cases; they simply interpret to men the 
way they should act in the community for the best 
good. "The only just and effective service legisla- 
tors can render is to mount up into the will of God 
and translate that will into terms adjusted to in- 
stant needs and suited to common intelligence,'* 
and affix artificial penalties, since the natural pen- 
alty may be too slow or refined in its effect for those 
dead in soul or blunted in conscience. The closer 
together people live in cities, the more minute are 
the regulations needed. A just law is a true inter- 
pretation of man to himself; an unjust law is one 
which does not correspond to the needs of man as 
an individual or of people in communities. Herbert 
Spencer says, "The justification of a law is that it 
enforces one or the other of the conditions neces- 
sary to harmonious social cooperation." It is ex- 
tremely difficult to determine at times the best 
adjustment for "harmonious social cooperation"; 
legislators have much to mislead them and may 
mistake what is for the good of the social organism. 
Seven hundred and seventy acts of Parliament were 



THE MORAL LAW 25 

repealed in 1861. Selfishness blinds men to right 
relations to their fellows. Witness the utterance of 
the president of the Confederate States of America : 
**This our new government is the first in the history 
of the world based upon the great physical, phil- 
osophical, and moral truth, that slavery is the nor- 
mal condition of the negro." The world has seen 
that this was not a true interpretation of the princi- 
ple, ''Love thy neighbor as thyself,'' and has swept 
it away at mighty cost in some of its forms. This 
institution, once protected by congresses, kings, and 
judges, is now an outlaw in all the courts of civilized 
nations. It is contrary to the law of love ingrained 
in man at his creation. The people of the United 
States are laboring now, or should be, for a true 
interpretation of the law of love, of the spirit of 
Christ, to be incorporated into the statutes of the 
states and the nation and into daily life in the inter- 
course of the races. Such interpretation must apply 
specifically and with increasing minuteness and de- 
tail to individuals and corporations, monopolies and 
private rights, to the relation of the whole com- 
munity or large portions of it, industrial enterprises, 
like mining, manufacturing, and especially trans- 
portation, to smaller portions of the community 
and to individuals. This leads directly to the prob- 
lem of government ownership, or socialism. 

The following may serve as an illustration of a 
true law, an interpretation and enforcing of natural 
conditions; when completed it has uniformity like 
a law of nature. A nation or city fears the 
approach of cholera or yellow fever. The law- 



26 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

makers desire to pass enactments that will keep it 
out. They must first learn from a study of the 
disease, or from those who do study it, medical or 
scientific men, the nature of cholera; if it comes 
from a germ they must ascertain what will destroy 
the germ as well as learn many other necessary 
facts. Knowing these things, they can make a true 
law to protect the people against cholera, establish- 
ing a quarantine against goods and people. If their 
information and methods have been correct nature 
verifies their work. This, as far as applicable, 
should be the method of procedure in the establish- 
ment of all laws. How men have sacrificed their 
lives for such information in many departments; 
how many have voluntarily died in ascertaining, for 
example, that the mosquito carries the yellow fever 
germ, and the particular species which carries it, 
are to-day well-known facts. They should fill one 
with pride that he belongs to such a race, and also 
with a similar self-sacrificing spirit. 

Committees of investigation are needed before 
any law is enacted to get facts about finance, in- 
surance, commerce, manufacturing, education, and 
all departments of life. When the conditions of 
best cooperation are ascertained the legislators 
should announce these as the laws under which 
people must live and affix penalties for the violation 
of them. Such facts are very difficult to obtain in 
regard to many industries and activities of men, 
and especially new forms of business. The new 
methods in most lines of effort, large combinations 
of men and money, trusts and the like, have 



THE MORAL LAW 27 

developed faster than ethical knowledge of how to 
make all work for the good of all; hence mal- 
adjustment and friction at different points. A 
knowledge of the real principle of the law, ''Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," does not carry 
with it a knowledge of the application of that law 
to' specific cases. Suppose one means to love his 
neighbor as himself, will he give the neighbor, a 
vagrant, money or food, if solicited? Will that be 
treating aright the other neighbors whom he must 
also love? The immense work of charity bureaus, 
their statistics and knowledge of the submerged or 
degenerate classes, is needed to answer the question. 
Suppose one love his neighbor as himself, will he 
always favor an eight-hour day for a laboring 
man? Will he employ women and children nights 
in factories or in unsanitary rooms? Will he 
enforce a certain maximum fare, as two cents per 
mile, on the railroads? How will the profits and 
losses of business be distributed — how much to 
labor and how much to capital? All these questions 
must be answered and a thousand and one other 
facts must be known before just laws can be made 
touching these complex social needs. When once 
they are known, experiments have been tried and 
laws have been made that fit natural conditions, 
they should be respected as well as laws to stamp 
out cholera. There is no republican or socialistic 
way to build a bridge across a wide river like the 
Mississippi; there is simply the way made feasible 
or necessary by the river, its banks, the materials, 
the wind, the probable loads the bridge must carry. 



28 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

and the scientific principles of construction. These 
facts determine the way to build a bridge ; boodle, 
political favors, and the ballots of those ignorant 
of the situation have nothing to say about it. 

In like manner there is a right way for people 
in a mine or a factory, for owners, employers, and 
the employed in various capacities, to cooperate to 
produce the best results, or the highest life for all. 
Let legislators discover and announce that way, 
with partiality for none, and they will be the hon- 
ored men of the nation. Other lawyers than the 
one to whom in answer to his question Jesus gave 
the parable of the good Samaritan may not know 
who their neighbors are nor how to treat them in 
specific cases, till the hearts of the lawyers are filled 
with love to God, and investigation into the needs 
of the neighbors, or how the other half lives, has 
been carried a long way. This view of law makes 
room for scientific progress, further applications of 
the principle of love, and the discovery by man 
enlightened and led by the Holy Spirit of its mean- 
ing in everyday life. Investigation is necessary in 
the social world to learn the adaptations to right 
objective conditions or the perfect will of God for 
the coexistence in mutual respect and helpfulness of 
finite spirits incarnated, just as investigation in the 
electrical world is necessary to learn how to light 
cities and transport goods and people. The latter 
knowledge is coming rapidly, the former may. 
Medicine and surgery are rapidly learning to com- 
bat disease and promote health; the nation has a 
right to spend its money for the purpose of exam- 



THE MORAL LAW 29 

ining conditions closely in order to promote the 
political, educational, and religious health of its 
citizens. O that it were possible to set forth the 
truth about the moral law in individual, civic, and 
national life so that it would convince the judgment, 
satisfy the reason, fascinate the imagination, and 
fire the soul with enthusiasm for persuading all the 
world to live in harmony with it! 

But it will be objected properly that it will require 
time to learn what is best for employers, what is 
best for laborers, and what are fair railroad and 
insurance rates. This is true, and a necessary evil 
which people can endure, if they only know that 
this investigation is really pushed as rapidly as 
possible and that it is impartial; and that no indi- 
vidual, corporation, or class is to have advantage 
beyond another at last, or if possible during the 
investigation. No one blames Mr. Edison and 
others for not inventing the incandescent lamp or 
Mr. Bell and his coworkers for not perfecting the 
telephone twenty years sooner than they did; that 
is a limitation of man as he exists now. If all 
people had good will toward others, and all knew 
or believed assuredly, laborers and capitalists, rich 
and poor, that each individual and each class or 
group had good will for the others, all could wait 
patiently till the details of our problems were ad- 
justed; just as all wait for a method of traveling 
through the air till experimenters have tried many 
schemes and established a safe and practicable 
method. It is the good will that is needed, love 
under another name, the certain and fixed belief 



30 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

not only that no one is taking advantage of another, 
but also that every one is promoting the welfare of 
others. While this investigation is pending, that 
would keep the peace and make a nation prosper- 
ous, strong, and blessed. 

Obedience to law, physical, ethical, and religious, 
is the great lesson for the American people to learn 
to-day. Not only the future well-being but the 
future being of our nation depends on obedience 
to law on the part of its citizens. The gospel of 
love has been heralded around the world very fully 
in this century; many seem to feel no need of the 
gospel of love and pardon. Let the gospel of law 
be practiced and let it be preached everywhere by 
innumerable voices of tongue, pen, sword, and 
pick-ax, of capitalists, journalists, statesmen, and 
clergymen, by private firms and public corpora- 
tions ; for salvation is not prized where there is no 
consciousness of violated law and unescapable 
penalty. 

Continued disregard of the law in the individual 
soul and in the soul of the community command- 
ing each to love his neighbor as himself, continued 
rejection of this necessary condition of "complete 
living" and of the unavoidable relations — unavoid- 
able if people are to have peace and prosperity — 
imposed of necessity by family, community, national 
and international life, will overthrow any nation; 
it has overthrown the strongest. 

The state whose legislative enactments are in 
accordance with the constitution of man and the 
well-being of society and therefore correct, like 



THE MORAL LAW 31 

laws of health or those of the soil and plants, will 
command the respect of all citizens and the obedi- 
ence of most. Such a state could not be over- 
thrown, as there would be no considerable internal 
force desiring its overthrow ; no better government 
could be put in its place; no foreign power could 
destroy it. Nothing less than this excellence will 
satisfy the race. 

While respect for lawmakers is greatly dimin- 
ished, respect for law in nature, and in particular 
in the spiritual nature of man, is increasing. Let 
scientific workers in any department announce that 
a certain uniformity in nature or general fact has 
been discovered, as the solidification of oxygen or 
the principle of the arc light, or the application of 
electricity as a motor force, and people revere the 
principle at once. They hasten to conform their 
work to it and are ready to expend millions of dol- 
lars in its application or further investigation. Sci- 
ence has a large audience of eager listeners, and 
they are very ready believers. 

The laws inherent in the social organism and its 
units in the sense set forth in these pages, the condi- 
tions of the best life of the spirit and of society, 
must be held before men's minds till they can see 
these laws, like angels, standing before the gate of 
every individual and family, social and industrial 
paradise, with sword in hand, guarding with their 
penalties every v/ay of life. These laws must be 
thundered in the ears of men till a constant fear 
shall seize upon every soul and no one shall dare 
to disobey the sacred law within hirti. Every 



32 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

offender, like Damocles, is in reality sitting under 
a sword suspended over his head by a hair. We 
affirm this: if it were once known and established 
as a firm trust among all that everybody, even in 
America only, lives and would live in harmony with 
the law of love, it would be possible with com- 
parative ease to settle the minor questions of the 
specific duties and remove injustices and oppressive 
and inequitable legislative enactments. All could 
wait till the knowledge of the best conditions in a 
given case was obtained, though it might require 
generations. Good will, helpfulness, peace, and a 
self-sacrificing spirit are the instant need. The 
spirit of Socrates in his personification of the laws 
of his city-state and in obedience to them, while 
unjustly taking his life, should ever be the spirit 
of the youth of the land. The words of Abraham 
Lincoln should never be forgotten : "'Let reverence 
for the law be breathed by every American mother 
to the lisping babe upon her lap. Let it be taught 
in schools, seminaries, and colleges. Let it be 
written in primers, spelling books, and almanacs. 
Let it be preached from the pulpit — in short, let it 
become the political religion of the nation." 



CHAPTER II 

Definitions of Sin 

The view of love just presented does not imply 
that it is an impersonal rule or a blind force of 
nature or mere uniformity excluding personality 
back of it. Law is the uniform mode of acting or 
expression of a person both in the physical and 
spiritual worlds, and that person is God and he is 
love. God reveals himself in history as the Friend 
of man ; and the modern conception of this Friend 
is that there is no arbitrariness, caprice, 'Variable- 
ness, or shadow of turning'' in his dealings, both 
with matter and with men. It is important to empha- 
size the regularity of the method of God in dealing 
with man and in what he expects of man. God is 
love and law and light and spirit or absolute reason, 
''the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." 
Why exalt the law so much? Because truth is 
loved and sought; because truth about law is as 
important, necessary, and indispensable for bringing 
things to pass in the realm of mind as in the realm 
of material forces; the knowledge of law is an 
iabsolutely necessary condition in promoting the wel- 
fare of the human spirit, in quickening souls, as in 
using electricity or steam. Why exalt the law? 
Because "the strength of sin is the law"; where 
law is lightly esteemed, sin is not felt ; with no sin 
and guilt present as a deadening weight, no one 
cares for a Saviour. 

S3 



34 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Conduct not in harmony with the law of love, 
failures to keep it, are sin on an absolute standard, 
that is, as God sees it. This does not imply that 
each person so sinning has stifif-necked rebellion 
against God in his heart. These may be sins of 
ignorance, most of them likely are. Yet there are 
sins of rebellion, of mean opposition to the moral 
order of the world and to God himself. Is there 
no help for the man who has failed to obey the 
law within, or for the race that has failed to con- 
form to the social conditions of holy existence? 
Certainly; a remedial dispensation has been pro- 
vided in the love of God. The being high enough 
in the scale of intelligence and moral responsibility 
to apprehend and offend another personal being is 
also high enough to be forgiven and reinstated in 
friendship, if the injured party is willing. Some 
would explain the provision for recovery from 
sin as a modification or annulling of the moral 
law to suit man's sin-weakened condition; they 
include in this idea an accommodation of the law 
to fallen man. Some also speak of the law of 
love, as if it were not the divine standard of right- 
eousness for man, but a milder law of good inten- 
tions, a ''gospel law," so that one may be saved 
if outward practice is not up to par. To avoid 
confusion and misunderstandings, a few statements 
are needed on these points. 

The moral law, or law of love, in this book means 
the two great commandments as reannounced or 
interpreted by Jesus with all their specific applica- 
tions to life. It is binding now and always on all 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 35 

people, saints and sinners. Popular use of the word 
''love" as an emotional state or passing sentiment 
is liable to mislead; in the phrase ''law of love," 
love means an act of the will. God's love to man 
and man's love to his neighbor and to God, as 
required in the commandment, is an act of the will ; 
it is a determination of the being strong enough to 
carry the emotions with it and to get itself mani- 
fested in action. The love required of man in the 
commandment is a supreme choice, a fixed decision 
to serve God and to promote the welfare of his 
fellows. "He that hath my commandments, and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me" (John 14. 
21). "If a man love me, he will keep my words" 
(John 14. 2^). This is the love which is the ful- 
filling of the law. If the first pair or any man kept 
the law of love perfectly always, they would also 
keep the law of works and have salvation all the 
time by works. Some writers refer to a "law of 
works" or Adamic law as if it were a separate 
mode of living from the law of love; it is not so 
presented here, provided a person always obeys 
fully the law of love. If Adam kept the law of 
love perfectly — or the "law of works" — he had 
faith and love as well as "works." The law of love 
is the same for Adam and us and angels. Works 
performed by man as he was created fulfill the 
law of love; with perfect and faultless works 
enough continually, there would be no break in 
friendship with God. Since there is a shortage in 
works, there is needed and there is provided a 
Mediator who atones for the missings of the mark 



26 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

as well as the heinous sins, and strengthens the 
one who having failed repents and believes. Thus 
recovery is made possible so that satisfactory works 
may be rendered again. 

The way of salvation is not to be explained as the 
lowering of the moral law, or a "gracious adapta- 
tion" of it to a sin-stricken race. It is rather to 
be described by saying that God is raising man to 
the point where he can both know and keep the 
law; and it is man's job to want to keep it and 
to cooperate with God in securing the knowledge 
and ability necessary to keep it. The moral law 
could not be changed without first changing reason 
infinite and finite. The rails are already laid by a 
divine hand, and were before the foundation of the 
world, on the ethical road over which the soul is 
to run to attain complete redemption and perfec- 
tion. Bishop R. S. Foster, after writing on Chris- 
tian Purity, after studying theology for a lifetime 
and observing the evils of the teaching that the 
law is abolished or accommodated to the weakness 
of sinful man, states thus his mature and sound 
judgment on this point: "The grace which, through 
the atonement and by faith, has secured to it [the 
soul] forgiveness for sins that are past does not 
modify or change its relations to immutable ethical 
law. ... To its utmost demand the law is forever 
binding upon the forgiven as much as upon the 
unforgiven soul. ... It must do the will of God, 
resisting all evil and fulfilling all righteousness. 
... It is matter of experience that every regenerate 
soul feels this obligation. It is an ethical necessity 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 37 

that it should be so; otherwise the atonement, 
which was made for life, would work death, and 
forgiveness and regeneration would work all man- 
ner of unrighteousness. It is impossible that any- 
thing that God does for the soul should emancipate 
it from the obligations of righteousness without in- 
troducing anarchy into the moral system." ^ 

God requires and must require always obedience 
from man inward and outward, action in harmony 
with reason or the plan of his being. If this con- 
duct is not forthcoming from everybody, there is 
moral chaos; in a state of moral chaos much of 
the human race now is and most of it has been since 
the dawn of history. Only One, Jesus of Nazareth, 
has gone through life doing "always those things 
that please him," keeping the law perfectly at all 
points. The lawkeeper in the flesh, the sinless One 
in human form, is fit to be a Mediator between the 
law-abiding One, the invisible God, and the law- 
breaker, man. His life and death provide the way 
of rescue for a lawless race. ''And if any man 
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the righteous : and he is the propitiation for 
our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the 
sins of the whole world" (i John 2. i, 2). 'Tor 
we have not an high priest which cannot be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. 4. 15). 
We have rather "a merciful and faithful high priest 
in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation 
for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2. 17). The 
man, then, who has failed to render perfect works 

^ Philosophy of Christian Experience, p. 136. 



38 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

according to the law can take refuge in Him who 
did not fail to render perfect works, or continuous 
obedience, throughout life, and who in addition 
gave himself up to die for the remission of sins. 
Only in him can the sinner find safety, and in imi- 
tation of him. "Christ is the end of the law for 
righteousness," not for carelessness or laziness, "to 
every one that believeth" (Rom. lo. 4). For the 
law, being "weak through the flesh,'' could not 
enable man to keep itself perfectly; but the Son 
of God coming "in the likeness of sinful flesh and 
for sin," namely, to expiate the guilt and pollution 
and to destroy the weakening and blinding power 
of sin, is enabling man now to keep this law of 
love, and will still more enable him in future gen- 
erations in this life or in a future life to keep it, 
even finally to absolute perfection as a redeemed 
spirit. How God is just and the justifier of those 
who fail to keep his perfect law involves the mys- 
tery of the atonement and cannot be discussed here. 
Then, as man is unable at once to fulfill objectively 
or on an absolute standard the demands of the king- 
dom of God, he offers a striving after righteousness 
according to ability. Christ makes satisfaction for 
that in which the disciple fails. Christ's work 
secures "the remission of sins that are past, through 
the forbearance of God," supplements man's weak- 
ness and moral failures, no matter how numerous 
and heinous, if the man trusts Christ in his heart 
and shows his faith by a reproduction of Christ's 
life according to his strength. 

Some present trust in Christ or good will to him, 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 3Q 

following him, as a substitute for the moral law, 
which, they say, none can keep; some even make 
this trust an excuse for not trying to keep the law. 
They sometimes call this mode of life a gospel law, 
or the law of liberty; or, using the words in a dif- 
ferent sense from that in which they are used in 
these pages, call it a law of love. This use of 
the phrase ''law of love'' is objectionable. If any 
wish to call salvation, or life by faith in Christ, 
a law of faith to emphasize the fact that Christ's 
life and death make our holiness possible, it may 
be proper enough; but to avoid misunderstandings 
this term is not here used. Trusting Christ and 
following him are in no wise set forth here as a 
substitute for or release from keeping the moral 
law; but they are proclaimed as the means of re- 
storing sinning and sin-blighted man to that con- 
dition eventually in which he can keep the perfect 
law and live the life fully up to the divine standard. 
We do not enter upon the old dispute about faith 
and works; both are needed, if a man lives here 
long after he has saving faith. There is much con- 
fusion, too, about the word "perfection" in writ- 
ings on holiness ; it is used in two or more senses. 
For most people it means that which is really per- 
fect, flawless or absolutely perfect, for the life of 
man; but in theology there is a so-called Christian 
perfection, a perfection which is not perfect, some- 
thing lower than ideal perfection. The strict scien- 
tific view of law and the high standard have been 
advocated in these pages thus far with a hint as to 
the attainability in future of the absolute perfec- 



40 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

tion of manhood and of the full realization of the 
Creator's idea of man. Others wish to hold that 
the law is accommodated or the high standard 
lowered to suit man's need that some may be saved. 
This view pushed to its extreme yields Antinomian- 
ism, or the doctrine that it is not obligatory upon 
the Christian to keep the law. Fletcher, who op- 
posed Antinomianism, says: ''We shall not be 
judged by that law [of paradisaical obedience, what- 
ever that is], but by a law adapted to our present 
state and circumstances^ a milder law, called the 
law of Christ."^ Possibly the two views, which 
have occasioned much controversy, each supported 
by able men, may be conciliated or at least placed 
together as supplementary and not mutually de- 
structive in the light of the following considerations. 
It is affirmed that it is not necessary to live up 
to the strict requirements of the divine standard 
always, before and after conversion, in order to get 
to heaven. That is true ; it was exemplified in the 
last hours of the thief on the cross. Justification 
by faith is possible for every one as often as he 
fails in keeping the law, if repentance is sincere. 
Nevertheless it is necessary for every justified 
man, looking toward the future, to live as nearly 
in harmony with this perfect law as he possibly 
can with divine help, that he may keep justification, 
may please God by carrying out his purpose in 
creation and redemption, be like his Saviour and 
bless society. It is absolutely necessary to keep that 
law to bring heaven down to earth ; the saved soul, 

^ Quoted by Mudge, Growth in Holiness toward Perfection, p. 44. 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 41 

when admitted to the perfect society in the New 
Jerusalem, or to heaven, will be keeping that law 
every moment. We are told that we cannot have 
angelic perfection in this life; that may be so; 
but God would like angelic obedience and like it 
now from the reader; can he get it? ''Thy will be 
done in earth, as it is in heaven,'' is the prayer and 
desire of the Saviour as well as of the apostles and 
all lovers of God. 

The idea of the changed demand of God, or a step 
preliminary to carrying out the primary demand 
of absolute righteousness, after sin entered the race, 
is seen clearly in a statement like the following, 
which is true; and yet there is another truth com- 
plementary. ''All that I am required to do is to 
love God with the full measure of my present pow- 
ers, crippled and dwarfed by original and actual sin. 
When I do this I am perfect in love in the evan- 
gelical sense — not when I fulfill that ideal moral 
capacity which I should have if I had been the sin- 
less offspring of a sinless ancestry."^ 

If love here means a choice, not merely an emo- 
tion, this seems to mean that after conversion good 
intentions or purposes carried out as thoroughly 
as one can are all that is required. And it is true 
that this plus what Christ does for man through his 
atonement will bring the soul peace with God now, 
and at death deliverance from hell. Such a life 
issuing from a soul purified from actual and orig- 
inal sin and filled with the Spirit is often called 
evangelical or Christian perfection. It is meaning 

^ Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers, p. 127. 



42 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

well, being loyal to the Saviour, and expressing that 
loyalty in outward conduct as completely as poor 
judgment, a judgment made fallible by sin, and 
sin-debilitated powers will admit. Such conduct, 
however, namely, the best the thoroughly conse- 
crated and cleansed man can do with his ignorance 
and weakness, will not quite produce on earth the 
conditions of heaven; it is not all God desires. It 
may be nearly all he can get from most people now ; 
he is long-suffering. He wants not merely a good 
motive but objective excellence in practice and the 
attainment of ideal perfection in keeping the law 
of love. An able writer on ethics as well as meta- 
physics makes this plain: ''The will to do right in 
no way implies the perfection of the moral life, but 
only its central element and indispensable condi- 
tion. The will must be realized in fitting forms and 
the entire life be made an expression of right rea- 
son before that which is perfect can come."^ The 
perfection referred to here is doubtless ideal per- 
fection, not Christian perfection in the Wesleyan 
sense. 'Tt is by no means sufficient that one be 
formally right, that is, true to his convictions of 
duty; he must be materially right, that is, in har- 
mony with reality and its laws."^ 

God wants man to get back to the state in which 
he can keep the law perfectly on God's standard; 
it is monstrous to teach that a good motive or feel- 
ing, or love as a sentiment without its execution, is 
all God requires at any point in this life. God 
wants men to be like his Son in his human life, 

* B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, p. 132. * Ibid., p. 40. 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 43 

to have all the mind he had and to walk as he 
walked, which was with absolute correctness and 
perfection in inward feeling and outward practice, 
not merely with perfection of motive. Evangelical 
perfection is a gate in the pathway of man on the 
way back to ideal perfection. It is a wicket gate 
on the king's highway on which man journeys 
laboriously back toward perfect Christlikeness. 
Man passes through the first on his way to the 
second. Christian perfection is no finality; it is 
not so represented; nor is it the end of develop- 
ment in a future life nor in this life, if life on earth 
continues long after attaining it. Regeneration and 
entire sanctification are stages which mark the 
progress of man as he, having been reconciled to 
God, is '^changed from glory to glory'' to the com- 
plete restoration of the moral image of God. God 
would like to have men faultless as well as blame- 
less. He is even now laboring with infinite wis- 
dom, power, and patience to get the race where 
there will be some ''sinless offspring," some like 
Him who was "the firstborn among many brethren." 
He wants a generation who can keep the whole law 
individually and collectively better than the first 
generation or any since the Christian era. It is 
our belief that the second generation of Christians, 
or the third, did not enjoy as much social salvation 
as the present generation of Christians in the United 
States or have as large and clear conceptions of 
Christian doctrine. They had slavery and cruel 
warfare and no free education or free government 
and suffered many ills. The present generation of 



'44 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Christians in China does not enjoy the present bene- 
fits of Christ's Hfe and death which the average 
American Christian enjoys. Many of them have 
even been put to death for the faith. Each genera- 
tion, starting on a higher level, should add to the 
increment of holiness and the improved moral dis- 
cernment of the preceding generation. The '^great 
racial impairment" v^ill more than be made good 
by the ''great racial repairment" of the second 
Adam. God has undertaken and is pledged to see 
that he who commits himself to Christ and abides 
in Christ shall in this life or some other obtain full 
recovery from all the ruin of sin, and enjoy ideal 
perfection as a man in his own being and live in 
the society of such perfected beings. God has 
power to execute his purpose for all who obediently 
submit themselves to his training, and ''is able to do 
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
think." 

The same truth may be seen in diflferent concep- 
tions of salvation in different periods of Christian 
thought. When it is affirmed by Wesley and others 
that it is not necessary to keep the perfect law "as 
a means of salvation," the conception of salvation 
was that of getting off a wrecked ship into a haven 
of rest. The statement is true for the view of 
salvation which sees in it solely or chiefly escape 
from the wrath to come. Faith in Christ secures 
pardon and heaven; yet while the disciple con- 
tinues on earth a saving faith necessitates imita- 
tion of Christ and leads one to make the closest 
approach possible to keeping the perfect law, the 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 45 

law of love. It has become thoroughly evident to 
Christians of this generation that there is more to 
salvation than simply getting to heaven. A com- 
mon conception of salvation to-day is that it is 
deliverance from sin of all kinds, individual and 
social, and the effects of sin in the race and estab- 
lishment in righteousness. Salvation means in brief 
all private and public life in harmony with the will 
of God, or the millennium on earth. For the whole 
race to secure and permanently retain salvation in 
this sense, it is absolutely necessary that men live 
in harmony with the immutable law of love. It 
is necessary, too, not only for one person to obey 
the law, but for the whole circle in which he moves, 
or possibly the race, if one is to have the full bene- 
fit of salvation in his environment. This, of course, 
is possible only through union with the Christ. 
Since good intentions or right will alone are not 
sufficient, in no other way than by keeping the 
perfect law of love can men escape confusion and 
divisions arising from ignorance and errors of judg- 
ment, strife and war as a consequence of these, 
and various political evils and industrial oppression. 
To keep the law actually in outward conduct on 
an absolute standard, that is, as God sees it, will 
abolish hell on earth; to keep it in intention and 
as well as one can in practice, that is, on the evan- 
gelical standard, will relieve hell on earth of some 
of its worst features and open the way to its com- 
plete abolition. That all have right motives means 
simply that there is good will everywhere. To 
make actual the condition of heaven in human 



46 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

society means salvation in its completest sense. All 
the spirits in heaven are keeping the perfect law 
daily, the law of love. Some writers a century or 
two ago commonly meant by salvation only a per- 
sonal salvation — too often only of the elect or a 
portion of the race — from sin and its punishment, 
with the attention largely directed to the punish- 
ment; their thoughts were centered on entrance to 
heaven, not on social as well as individual salvation 
on earth from all the evils sin ever brought to the 
race. 

In order to set forth the meaning of so compre- 
hensive a word as "sin" a little further on with its 
varied uses and abuses, it is helpful to notice the 
possible attitudes of a finite spirit, as man, toward 
the moral law. 

ATTITUDES OF A PERSON TOWARD THE MORAL LAW 

A. As regards knowledge: Attitudes of the in- 
tdlect : 

1. He may know the true law fully. 

2. He may not know it. It is not implied that 
one has so little sense of a moral law or of right 
and wrong that he is a nonmoral being. 

3. He may know it partially; there are many 
degrees here from the ignorance of 2 up to the 
knowledge of i. 

B. As regards action: Attitudes of the will and 
the feelings: 

4. He may keep the law perfectly: (a) In in- 
tention or motive; and in outward conduct only 
as far as his enli^tenment permits — ^that is, on a 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 47 

relative or subjective standard, (b) In intention 
and actually — ^perfectly in outward conduct on an 
absolute or objective standard for mankind. 

5. He may not keep it at all — not intend to at 
any time. 

6. He may keep it partially — at certain periods of 
life or for a more or less limited time. 

Then in all forms of actual sin there is the two- 
fold kind, sin of commission and omission. These 
attitudes may be combined in various ways : 

1. He may know the law fully and keep it per- 
fectly always on an absolute standard ; Jesus Christ 
is the only one among men who did this. 

2. He may not know it and not keep it; many 
savages and barbaric peoples would be classed here. 

3. He may know it partially and keep it partially ; 
most of the human race would be classified here. 

4. He may know it perfectly and not keep it at 
all any time after a given point, nor intend to ; this 
could only be true of a devil. 

One can combine i and 6, or 3 and 4 (a) and 
otherwise, and get many varieties of knowledge 
and action. One may substitute the ideal for the 
moral law or he may substitute attitude toward 
God; the propositions will be substantially true. 
There are many degrees of impulsiveness or de- 
liberation under B; there are different degrees of 
intuition or immediateness, clearness or obscurity, 
in the knowledge under A ; most get full knowledge 
of the claims of the moral law only after much 
study. If the terms "relative or subjective stand- 
ard'' and ''absolute or objective standard'' seem 



48 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

meaningless or inappropriate to some, they may 
substitute for the latter the correct or divine stand- 
ard for man's behef and conduct, or Jesus' standard 
of right and wrong; and for the former, each in- 
dividual's standard, a self -erected standard — ''that 
v^hich is right in his own eyes." The individual's 
standard in some respects will be that of his age or 
generation; these are usually approximations to 
the divine standard, or attempts to reach it. We 
make little or no account of the standard or ideal 
of individuals who are not trying to know or do 
the right. 

Much confusion results from the meanings of the 
word ''sin" and the nearly synonymous terms in 
the Bible and in theology. These words convey 
some idea of an act or state contrary to the will 
of God. To avoid obscurity and endless contro- 
versy definitions are absolutely necessary, and the 
words must be used in the following chapters ac- 
cording to the definition. Forms of statement like 
the following are worth remembering: "Sin is an 
act of a free being"; "Sin is an act of the will 
in opposition to the will of God" — some would 
say "to the known will of God." 

There are certainly at least two prominent mean- 
ings of the word "sin" in the Bible and in theology. 
The one refers to sin (A) as an act, the second to 
sin (S) as a state. The first (A) is defined in 
I John 3. 4: "Sin is the transgression of the law"; 
or, "Sin is lawlessness." This is a formal definition 
of sin; one does not really know what sin is till 
he knows what the law commands. A very useful 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 49 

and broad definition, too, is that of the Presby- 
terian catechism: ''Sin is the transgression of the 
law and any want of conformity to it." When 
transgressions of the law are repeated again and 
again in one's life a habit of sinning is formed; 
this, as continued action, is prolonged into a state 
of sinfulness, first in the individual, then in the 
race. Therefore the meaning of sin as an act 
shades into the idea of sin as a state. Now, sin (S) 
as a state or principle or spring of evil within the 
nature is called usually in theology original or 
inbred sin, and for present use is described in the 
following chapter (p. 80). 

Under the broad definition, *'Sin is the transgres- 
sion of the law,'' many meanings and phases of sin 
are possible; some of these in the interest of 
accuracy must be specified. If any dislike these 
details, he should remember that they are abso- 
lutely necessary to clear thinking on this subject. 
Likewise similar discrimination is necessary in the 
administration of justice. Murder in popular lan- 
guage means one thing, somebody killed by another 
in time of peace; in legal or exact language it is 
necessary to define degrees of murder and after 
that manslaughter. Sin is a big word including 
varieties of conduct, and as found in real life not 
to be logically defined like a straight line. Under 
sin (A) as an act, the transgression of the law, 
one sees there are willful and careless acts, acts in 
ignorance and in clear knowledge, impulsive and 
premeditated acts, and many others with varying 
degrees of guilt, 



50 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Some have greatly narrowed Saint John's defini- 
tion by saying, ''Sin (A^) is the voluntary trans- 
gression of a known law." This is concise and 
clear; and if sin could always have been used in 
theology in this sense or in the form, "Sin is the 
transgression of the law/' and in no other sense, 
much bitter controversy would have been avoided. 
This was John Wesley's favorite definition of sin. 
He uses the word "sin" in three different senses: 
I. As just stated. 2. Sin is an involuntary infrac- 
tion or transgression of the divine law. 3. Sin 
denotes the depravity inherited from Adam, or 
original sin. The first, "Sin is the voluntary trans- 
gression of a known law," he refers to as "sin 
properly so called." In this sin the intention or 
choice is culpable. When he talks about "living 
without committing sin" he means without sin in 
this sense. Sin in the second sense he considers sin 
"improperly so called" ; here the motive is supposed 
to be right, the purpose good; but the conduct is 
improper or wrong. Wesley did not like to name it 
sin because he wished to speak of Christian perfec- 
tion as excluding all sin; but he well knew and 
often affirmed that Christian perfection did not 
exclude these involuntary transgressions. 

Take the simple definition, "Sin is the voluntary 
transgression of a known law," and negative it in 
two places, and another definition of importance 
will be obtained. Sin (A2) is the involuntary trans- 
gression of an unknown law, also of a known law. 
This statement practically agrees with Wesley's 
definition number 2. There is such a sin; the 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 51 

Scriptures call it sin through ignorance or sinning 
unwittingly. It is often called a mistake or error 
of judgment; many dislike to call it sin because 
the motive in such an act is right. The writer 
considers it sin; it is sin viewed from an absolute 
standard ; that is, as God sees the act, and as right 
reason views it, it is sin. The action is contrary 
to or in some way fails to conform to the divine 
standard, the perfect will of God. The actor meant 
to perform the right act; so on the relative or 
subjective standard relative to the doer of the deed 
it was not sin. God's standpoint is the one which 
must decide. Saint John says, "All unrighteousness 
is sin.'' Westcott says concerning this : ''All failure 
to fulfill our duty one to another is sin." ''Apart 
from such sins as are open manifestations of a 
character alien from God, there are other sins which 
flow from human imperfection and infirmity, and 
in regard to these Christian intercession has its 
work." 

Sin through ignoranee according to the definition 
or presupposition of it must have no opposition to 
God or rebellion in it. The Bible calls these acts 
sins through ignorance and makes provision for 
them. In Lev. 4. 2, 13, 27 directions are given as 
to what should be done for such a sin. An offer- 
ing is prescribed as definite as for lying, and as 
obligatory; this may be seen by comparing with 
the preceding passage Lev. 6. 2-6. To avoid using 
numbers continually this form of sin is referred 
to in this book as unintentional or inadvertent sin, 
or sin through ignorance, to distinguish it from 



52 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the first class, which is voluntary or intentional sin. 
It may be appropriately called involuntary trans- 
gression or infraction of God's law. The act is 
contrary to the will of God, wrong in his sight, 
punishable in strict justice, and needs the atonement. 
Though there is promised abundant mercy for these 
sins, one must not fail to remember that they are 
trespasses. In Luke 12. 48 Jesus says, ^^But he 
that knew not, and did commit things worthy of 
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.'' While 
anyone, saved or unsaved, Christian or heathen, 
might be guilty of a sin through ignorance, its most 
frequent application, apart from the heathen, con- 
cerns the lives of people who are in the main trying 
to do right and to avoid all transgressions of the 
law. Some dislike to call any act sin when the 
motive of the actor is right or holy. The motive 
is not enough ; God demands that the outward con- 
duct be right also. Wesley said concerning the 
man who had attained Christian perfection and 
must still necessarily make many mistakes in prac- 
tice, because of mistakes in judgment, "Yet where 
every word and action spring from love, such a 
mistake is not properly a sin."^ He meant that 
it was not sin (A^) as he used the word. In that 
he was correct. He allowed that it was sin (A2), 
''sin improperly so called"; but he usually pre- 
ferred another name. 

Bishop Foster follows Wesley here. Pie calls 
the conduct that is wrong improper conduct, pre- 
ferring not to use the word "sin." Concerning 

^ Plain Account of Christian Perfection, p. 15. 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 53 

such mistakes or errors of judgment carried out in 
practice, he says: ''It will be perceived that we 
use the word 'improper' in this entire paragraph, 
for the want of a better, as describing an act 
springing from a mistake — improper as a mistake. 
The act is morally holy and right, since it springs 
from the holiest motive and the best judgment of 
the mind ; but it is not the act that would have been 
if the judgment had not been misled. It is im- 
proper as to what it should have been with better 
knowledge. It is proper as to the motive prompt- 
ing it. It is morally proper, but intellectually a 
mistake, and concretely a wrong or harmful thing. 
The person perpetrating it is not guilty in any sense, 
or unholy in any degree, because of the mistake or 
resulting concrete harmfulness.'^^ In an appendix^ 
he modifies this view and allows that such acts are 
sins; in a later work. Philosophy of Christian Ex- 
perience, he holds a strict view of the immutable 
moral law. It seems certain that the words quoted 
above put the matter entirely too weakly ; the per- 
son doing the wrong act, something contrary to 
God's will, probably a violation of the command- 
ment, "'Love thy neighbor as thyself,'' is not guilty 
as if he had done it knowingly, but is guilty and is 
counted by God himself a sinner; he needs the 
atonement to set him right. In the Mosaic dis- 
pensation a trespass offering w^as required, as in 
Lev. 5. 17, 18. Some of these sins of ignorance 
are small matters, some of them have resulted in 
very great ''concrete harmfulness" as well as in 

1 Christian Purity, p. 67. 2 Ibid., pp. 325-327. 



S4 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

conspicuous sins. Ignorance, not purposed or 
culpable, mitigates guilt but does not abolish it. 
This kind of action should be called sin, inadvertent 
or unintentional sin, if we choose. Wesley always 
taught that it had the nature of sin, action contrary 
to the perfect will of God, but he did not like to 
apply the name "sin" to it. He says : ''I believe a 
person filled with the love of God is still liable to 
these involuntary transgressions. Such transgres- 
sions you may call sins, if you please; I do not, 
for the reasons above mentioned.'.'^ 

That these actions or sins should not be called 
"improper conduct," with Foster, or by any soft 
name, is affirmed because they are so bad in their 
nature and have caused such grievous injustice to 
people, especially the weak and oppressed. God 
calls them sins through ignorance, as in the fourth 
chapter of Leviticus. The Bible treats such actions 
as sinful; Jesus died that men might be forgiven 
for their sins through ignorance, and as one of 
such sins, their action in crucifying him. Such 
acts should be called sins because they are wrong 
transgressions of the law ; they are contrary to the 
uniform action required by the moral law; they are 
very harmful to man; they do men at times the 
greatest injustice, even taking innocent lives, as in 
the burning of heretics. God is displeased with^ 
them in individuals and in a whole people (Lev. 
4. 13). This shows that the act is worse than im- 
proper conduct or mere error of judgment not 
injuring people, which is only an intellectual or 

1 Plain Accovmt, p. 1 6. 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN SS 

philosophical error. All sin is error of judgment; 
if the judgment or reason were right and the man 
obeyed it there would be no sin. All errors of 
judgment are not inadvertent sins; but those errors 
are sins which, when carried out into practical life, 
dealings with people*, wrong some human being, 
and thus in some measure somewhere violate the 
command, though not intentionally, ^^Love thy 
neighbor as thyself." If the same wrong were done 
knowingly it would be called sin or a crime. In 
this kind of sin there is no wrong motive, but un- 
less a person is very painstaking -there may be in 
the ignorance som^ carelessness, indifference, or 
negligence. God demands right knowledge of his 
law and correct workmanship as well as the right 
motive. Man demands right workmanship as well 
as motive, and will not ordinarily be satisfied with 
the motive alone. To say that a man meant to 
throw a switch is not enough after the train is 
derailed and ten people are killed. A judge does 
not say in rifle practice that the marksman hit the 
target because he meant to hit the target. By the 
offering prescribed for it in Num. 15. 27-29, the 
sin through ignorance is placed in contrast with the 
presumptuous or self-willed sin in Num. 15. 30, 31, 
for which no offering is allowed; the soul com- 
mitting this sin is to be "cut off from among his 
people," or put to death. The author of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews understands that the high priest 
makes atonement once a year for these inadvertent 
sins. "But into the second [the holy of holies, goes] 
the high priest alone, once in the year, not without 



56 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the 
errors [margin, ''ignorances," the word meaning, as 
well, thoughtlessness] of the people" (Heb. 9. 7, 
Am. R. v.). Whatever is bad enough to need an 
atonement which costs the life of the Son of God 
should be called sin in some degree ; though it may 
not be intentional sin. 

This sin through ignorance in people who meant 
to serve God, as they thought right and had been 
held to be right for centuries, was, in part at least, 
what crucified the Lord of glory. Jesus recognized 
that, and prayed, ''Father, forgive them; for they 
know not what they do." Peter afterward said, 
charging this sin upon his people, "And now, 
brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, 
as did also your rulers." God does not minify this 
by calling it merely improper conduct or error of 
judgment only; it was a black sin and unspeakably 
great "concrete harmfulness" ; it possibly had in it 
willful and culpable ignorance. There have been 
many harmful unintentional sins. "Yea, the time 
Cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that 
he doeth God service" (John 16. 2). This predic- 
tion of Jesus receives fulfillment in every age; it 
was fulfilled on a notable occasion when Saul of 
Tarsus stood by at the death of Stephen. 
Saul thought he was doing just right, serving 
the God of Abraham. It was a sin through igno- 
rance ; he had no intention of displeasing God. He 
says, "I have lived in all good conscience before 
God until this day" (Acts 23. i) ; again, "Touch- 
ing the righteousness which is in the law, blameless" 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 57 

(Phil. 3. 6). It will interest some readers to notice 
that Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit to say "blame- 
less," is using precisely the same word that Luke, 
inspired by the same Spirit, used concerning the 
life of Zacharias and Elisabeth (Luke i. 6). Paul 
did not commit intentional sin as a practice in his 
active life of young manhood before his meeting 
with Jesus on the Damascus road ; he was zealous 
for God, doing the best he knew how. He did not 
need to be converted from a state of alienation from 
God to one of loving service; he only needed light 
as to what the will of God was, as to who was the 
true Messiah, and he received it and accepted it. 
He does not say that he in his previous life was 
only making an error of judgment, but that he was 
a sinner and felt deeply grieved over it. His state- 
ments about the ''good conscience" and being 
''blameless" show what kind of a sinner he was — a 
sinner on the absolute standard, not on the 
relative or subjective standard; a sinner as God 
saw his life, not as he saw it at that time; 
and, further, a sinner in outward deeds, not in 
inner motive. He was not rebellious against God 
or his law as far as he knew it; but he was 
ignorant of the true Messiah. "I verily thought 
with myself, that I ought to do many things con- 
trary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 
26. 9). How far the ignorance itself was blame- 
worthy on account of carelessness, negligence, or 
resisting the light, he does not say and no one 
knows. His ignorance diminished but did not abol- 
ish or entirely remit his guilt. "But I obtained 



58 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief' (i 
Tim. I. 13). In the same verse Paul says he was 
formerly "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and 
injurious." We do not believe that he means to 
say that he blasphemed God or profaned the sacred 
name; but in some way he did despite to the name 
of Jesus. He who stood by consenting when Ste- 
phen was stoned on the charge of blaspheming 
God, a false charge, would not be likely to commit 
the same offense; the desire apparently was not 
in his heart. He was ''injurious" because he made 
havoc of the young church, believing that thereby 
he was serving the God he loved, the God of his 
fathers. Words and actions are right or wrong 
according to a divine standard; the outward act 
alone, a single act, cannot reveal the standing of 
the sinner to another man, or the nature of the 
sin, whether ignorant or vicious, impulsive or pre- 
meditated. One must always take into account the 
character or ruling purpose of the sinner in order 
to determine the degree of guilt of the sin. The 
workman may be perfect in intention or in heart 
but his work may be very imperfect. 

Errors of judgment, mistakes in mathematics, 
and the like, and opinions and whims, which do not 
wrong people, are not to be confounded with sins 
of ignorance. If the fallible judgment, defective 
memory, or erratic imagination is due to racial sin, 
that will be discussed in the following chapter; it 
may lead to a sin of ignorance. Depravity is not 
a sin of ignorance ; this is an act. Such mistakes 
and limitations of knowledge, holding absurd opin- 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 59 

ions on nonmoral subjects, those which do not in- 
volve a wrong choice, as are due to finiteness and 
would exist had there been no sin in the race, are 
not to be considered involuntary transgressions of 
law, known or unknown. Geographical and astro- 
nomical errors, errors in physics and in geology and 
in methods of farming, and the like, may abound 
without causing the stain of sin. Errors of judg- 
ment, failure of the natural faculties to form 
syllogisms correctly, unavoidable lack of skill in 
art or trade, as the terms are used in this treatise, 
are to be considered neither voluntary nor unin- 
tentional sins. With religion theology is usually 
connected; also a theory of the universe or of 
creation, a cosmogony; a view of spirit and of 
communication with spirits, with God or departed 
friends, including with this in earlier times some 
form of witchcraft. There may be many mistakes, 
false views, and fallible judgments in this depart- 
ment which are not sin. But if the erroneous view 
holds that this particular person is a witch and 
must be burned, it becomes a highly injurious and 
cruel sin through ignorance. Abraham's erroneous 
opinion of the people led to wrong action in his 
treatment of them, as in Gen. 20. 11. George 
Whitefield's wrong view about the slave trade led 
him to try to secure its introduction into the colony 
of Georgia. ''Who can understand his errors? 
cleanse thou me from secret faults." 

Attention is called to the fact that there are 
numberless degrees of ignorance, and therefore of 
shades of the sin through ignorance. Notice (i) 



6o AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

what may be called personal or temporary igno- 
rance, or often only forgetfulness. A man may not 
know the particular situation or the deed or the 
hour. He may know in general that a certain duty 
ought to be done, but he forgets. Many sins of 
omission occur in this way. On the other hand, a 
person may do something which he believes neces- 
sary and right; but if he had known or kept in 
mind certain other facts he would have known that 
that act was not the duty at that place and time. 
^'I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest'' 
(Acts 23. 5). ^'They went in their simplicity, and 
they knew not anything" (2 Sam. 15. 11). (2) 
There is a larger ignorance. A person may not 
know for years that a certain course of action is 
God's requirement of him, or is forbidden; but 
after a time he learns it and finds that he has been 
wrong. The man may have studied on the problem 
long or scarcely at all. One may thus be trans- 
gressing certain fundamental laws of health, or un- 
wittingly withholding his property or influence from 
the Lord's work, or cherishing a wrong habit. (3) 
Students of history are familiar with the ignorance 
of a particular age, often a dense ignorance. A 
person may do wrong or fail to do right through 
ignorance which extends to most of his tribe or 
nation or all his people for a long period. A child 
in Greece brought up to worship Jupiter five hun- 
dred years before Christ; a boy in China to-day 
offering incense to idols, never having heard of the 
true God, are examples. 'The times of this igno- 
rance God winked at; but now," when more light 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 6i 

has come, "commandeth all men everywfiere to 
repent'' (Acts 17. 30). There must have been some- 
thing wrong or God would not have had to *Vink." 
Many of the sins of Israel were thus without knowl- 
edge. It is a matter of conjecture how many of 
the sins of primitive men were committed in gross 
ignorance by those who did not comprehend the 
law fully and know God as its author as the Chris- 
tian scholar of the present day comprehends it. 
With these variations in ignorance, impulse, educa- 
tional advantages, and depraved nature, only God 
knows the guilt. Some temptations appeal to one 
worse at one hour than another. 

Sin (A3) again is the right name for some or 
all of the Christian's slips or falls. One needs to 
take into account the disposition or character of the 
sinner to understand the blackness of the sin. The 
sins or falls of the Christian are similar to the sins 
of the unrepentant sinner in that they may be trans- 
gressions of the law. They differ from the preced- 
ing in that he is not ignorant that it is sin, as well 
as in other respects. He may have a weakness 
which amounts almost or quite to the intention to 
yield that time, or that time only. But the intention 
may be very feeble, or if strong it must be of brief 
duration. Sometimes he is surprised into sin, slips 
or falls accidentally. Such was Peter's sin in deny- 
ing Christ at the trial. These are not sins of igno- 
rance. A justified man who has had bad habits may 
swear again before he thinks; the quick temper 
may break forth impulsively before one knows he 
is going to get angry. These are sins, and should 



62 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

be repented of and watched against. The Christian 
may reach a state where he will not thus give way. 
If Christians at once repent and resolve to be more 
careful next time, such sins do not end the justified 
state. Or if any wish to say it is ended at the 
first false step, it is resumed again the same day, if 
repentance and restitution for the wrong comes the 
same day. There should be many justifications in 
the Christian life ; the first one at the great turning 
to the Lord will not suffice for most people. Jus- 
tification and pardon are to be sought each day at 
least for errors, mistakes, and involuntary trans- 
gressions. These are disowned sins ; the man says, 
''I did not mean to do this; I am extremely cha- 
grined and sorry.^' These falls are often like the 
acts of a good housewife who breaks accidentally 
a valued piece of china and is much grieved over 
it. They are sometimes like the mistakes of one 
trying to play a beautiful piece on the piano and 
failing to do it skillfully, producing discord. In 
these acts the volitional element is often very weak, 
or perhaps absent; if strong it must be transient. 
These are sins contrary to the supreme choice or 
ruling purpose of the life ; like little eddies of back- 
water in a stream whose current goes strongly in 
the opposite direction. After such a fall the man 
should pick himself up quickly, clasp the hand of 
his Saviour, and go on again. These sins may 
be called sins of backsliding or relapse, or lapses, 
slips, or falls of the beHever; he is yielding to 
temptation. They are sometimes called little in- 
consistencies; so they seem to us; whether they 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 63 

seem so to God is a question. Sometimes they are 
gross or outbreaking sins. The frequent recurrence 
of these sins in the Hfe of Israel made God say 
by the prophet, 'Tsrael sHdeth back as a backsHding 
heifer.'' ''Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a 
fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one 
in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest 
thou also be tempted" (Gal. 6. i). How many 
might be saved to God and the church if this injunc- 
tion were always obeyed and there were enough 
''spiritual" people around! 

These lapses or falls do not, when disowned and 
repented of, destroy one's character as a Christian; 
he is striving to be a Christlike man just the same. 
A sincere person abhors his action and will make 
reparation for the wrong done in such a way and 
drive the evil out of his life. If the Christian con- 
tinues in this sin, does not renounce it, seek pardon 
of God, it is no longer a momentary act, a fall or 
slip back into the old life, but a more permanent 
state; it ceases to be a subordinate choice and 
may become a settled habit and a ruling principle. 
The person has lost his justified standing, and some 
or even all of his regenerate state. There are many 
illustrations of this among the heathen at home and 
on the mission field. 

Another variety of that sin which is the trans- 
gression of the law (sin A4) may be thus described. 
A man who does not have the law in his mind 
strives for what he desires regardless of the law 
or authority. "God is not in all his thoughts." He 
does not set out with a law in consciousness and 



64 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

intend to violate it ; there is no clear or fixed rebel- 
lion consciously directed against God; he is simply 
seeking to satisfy wants, not thinking or caring 
about God. Such a person commits the sin of 
not seeking first the kingdom of God ; probably he 
does not know much about the kingdom or make 
any effort to learn. He knows not or, if he knows, 
heeds not the injunction, ''Take no thought for 
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink." 
His whole life is not on this level. In this form 
the sinner knows the law dimly or has heard of it, 
otherwise it would not differ much from the sin 
through ignorance except in the kind of people in 
whom one especially notices the sin through igno- 
rance, because of the absence of intentional sin; the 
ignorance, too, is most likely more guilty. This 
kind of sinning is not common among earnest 
Christian people. In this sin the man does not 
intend to do despite to a supreme being or to injure 
other people ; he would rather avoid anything offen- 
sive, but feels that he must get what he wants, 
honestly if possible, but get it. He is seeking the 
gratification of his senses or desires and goes ahead 
not minding whose toes he steps on. He is like a 
child wandering about in the fields that sees an 
apple and picks it up and eats it, never inquiring 
or being concerned about ownership; though this 
act of the adult may be much more reprehensible 
than this possibly harmless and innocent act of a 
child. The person may not have so clear an idea 
of the law or commandment as Eve had. The 
lust or want is the chief object in consciousness; 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 65 

the man seeks to gratify it, and, if he is educated 
enough, seeks to gratify it usually without conflict- 
ing with civil or criminal law. God-consciousness 
does not exist in sufficient degree in these people ; it 
was not developed early in life, and most of them 
have not tried to cultivate it. There is a large 
amount of this sin among indifferent nonchurch- 
going people, many of whom are not usually ac- 
counted bad neighbors. There is very much of it 
among young men who are looking out for number 
one. There is much of it in the barbaric as well 
as in the fashionable world; it is a sin of the world, 
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the 
pride of life. This might be called unconcerned 
or careless sin ; it is poaching. To yield to it always 
means a life of self-indulgence and at last great and 
discontented selfishness. 

There is another distinction here not much, needed 
for our purpose but possible to thought ; to mention 
it may give further insight into the idea of sin. 
This refers to the actions, shortcomings, or so-called 
sins (A5) or improper conduct of the irresponsible, 
the manifestations appropriate to a nature derived 
from sinning ancestors. The irresponsible classes 
are the young whose reason is not developed, and 
the irrational or adults who have lost reason or 
who are in some way defective. These failures or 
delinquencies show kinship to the sins of the adult; 
they lack one or two essential elements to make 
them voluntary sin, either the moral choice or the 
intelligence. They are closely related to a deranged 
condition in the race somewhere. These acts are 



66 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

often exhibitions of greed or gratifications of un- 
natural appetences, and probably, too, of appetences 
distorted by ancestral sinning. Moral will is not yet 
developed; later it will be the business of the moral 
will to bring nature will, appetite, and lust into 
obedience to an ethical standard or other will. 
Infants get angry, strike, bite, are selfish, and 
manifest those qualities which in responsible adults 
are called sinful. They exhibit the works of the 
flesh and are often little tyrants. This happens at 
so early an age that no one can call it voluntary 
sin. There are volitional actions in the infant 
before there are voluntary sins; no moral standard 
is present in consciousness at first. ^'For without 
the law sin was dead" (Rom. 7. 8). The presup- 
positions of a moral act cannot be presented here. 
Many children, barely old enough to talk, often lie, 
utter oaths and obscene words without knowing the 
nature of profanity, cheat, steal, and fight probably 
before any moral distinctions are familiar to them. 
Some of these actions, if not all of them, show, we 
believe, a sin-tainted nature ; they certainly charac- 
terize a sinner prospective, and reveal to the eye of 
God a condition in a human being which is not his 
handiwork and is not ^'good" as he made man. Or 
some may prefer to say that such actions merely 
show the response or the receptivity of the mental 
and physical organism to the evil in the surround- 
ings. The first statement is probably true; few, 
if any, will contradict the latter, at least if the 
word ^'merely" is omitted. 

Concerning adults it is not possible to mention 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN e^j 

here what is now known about human nature from 
a study of its abnormal phases; nor is it possible 
here to utiHze accessible material on trance, hypno- 
tism, double personality, and ^'diseases of the will." 
Imbeciles and defectives and the insane commit acts 
out of keeping with any moral or civil law. Such 
outward actions are immoral and wicked for a fully 
developed and healthy rational being judged by 
a right ethical standard. But the actor is irrational ; 
he only possesses reason undeveloped or over- 
thrown; he cannot be called either holy or unholy 
by choice because at the time he is in a state in 
which these terms do not apply to him. The un- 
sound condition may show the terrible chaotic ruin 
possible to a member of the race. It may be proper 
to rule out the term ^^sin" in these references to 
infantile actions; and if some wish to call these 
mental states and outward actions weaknesses, im- 
proper conduct, or exhibitions of a nature not nor- 
mal, no argument against it is here raised. Their 
relation to racial sin may appear more clearly in 
the next chapter. This point has little to do with 
subsequent discussions except as reflecting light 
upon hereditary depravity or original sin; it is 
merely mentioned in passing as a part of the gen- 
eral subject. 

The devil's sin and the unpardonable sin are sim- 
ply extreme forms of voluntary or willful sin. Sin 
is the act of a free and intelligent being, saying, 
"I will not," when God says, "Thou shalt"; "I will 
do as I please." Sin may be thus an extremely 
rebellious and perverse act of a free spirit in oppo- 



68 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

sition to the will of God. It is conceivable that a 
free agent should know the will of God clearly and 
see clearly the consequences of opposition to that 
will; that this free agent should, after thinking 
the matter over carefully for a time, decide, and 
decide irrevocably, to oppose the will of God. He 
may make once for all a permanent and even a 
never-ending decision with all the determination of 
his will and might of his being. This is the deviFs 
sin, not man's sin, as men ordinarily sin; this is 
at once the summit of all sins. It is the adoption 
of evil forever — ''Evil, be thou my good." The 
free agent has gone so hard and so far into opposi- 
tion that he does not wish to return and cannot 
return to former friendship. Man's sin is more or 
less impulsive, committed in ignorance or thought- 
lessness of all the consequences, man in the first 
instance being ensnared by deceit from without; 
and there is room left for him to change his mind 
and to seek pardon and be again obedient. A man 
might thus sin persistently and forever and become 
an adopted and confirmed and perpetual child of the 
devil or of evil. It is probably well that man usual- 
ly wanders astray morally or openly opposes God 
with a dim knowledge of the law, through implica- 
tion in nature under the clog of the flesh and 
through a more or less dull apprehension of God; 
then his sin is not so virulent, stubborn, or far- 
reaching that return is impossible ; there is a place 
for repentance. 

The unpardonable sin is mentioned here because 
so many are always inquiring as to what it is. It 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 69 

IS not usually a single act, but a continued resist- 
ance of the Spirit of God, a turning away from 
the light. It is the rejection of salvation itself and 
the means of securing salvation. God sent his Son 
into the world and anointed him with the Holy 
Spirit; he came to save men from their sins and 
to teach them how to live and to win heaven. Some- 
times men say, as in Matt. 12. 25-29, ''It is not the 
Holy Spirit in him, but the spirit of the wicked 
one, and we will not receive his message nor follow 
his teachings." Jesus warned his contemporaries 
against treating him in this way. He warns men 
to-day against thinking or saying that the Spirit in 
him is an unholy Spirit ; that he is not a messenger 
of God, the Son of God, bringing light and salva- 
tion to all. This attitude of rejecting Christ and 
his gospel in clear light, continued till death, is 
sinning away the day of grace and is the unpardon- 
able sin; because it forever rejects the only way 
in which pardon can come, namely, through the 
Saviour of the world. It is the willful sin of the 
most perverse and persistent type. One who com- 
mits this sin is like a drowning man who refuses 
to be put into the boat sent to save him ; who will 
not take hold of the line thrown to him or accept 
the means for safety; who acts as if his friends 
were his enemies; nothing is left for him but 
drowning. This sin, we beheve, is rare; many 
conscientious people who are afraid that they have 
committed it may be almost sure they have not; 
if they have, they might perchance not be afraid, 
only stolid and indifferent. Those who fear that 



70 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

they are thus wicked should seek pardon at once 
and live holy lives; God in Christ will most surely 
receive them. Jesus promises them that "they shall 
never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of 
my hand" (John lo. 28). 

Some material definitions of sin are helpful as 
well as the formal definitions. Sin is selfishness; 
not selfishness in the ordinary popular sense, but in 
the sense of setting one's self up as superior to 
the system, like a bee not working with the swarm 
or like a planet leaving its orbit; in the sense of 
nonrecognition of the rights and well-being of 
others, including God. This is the essential nature 
of sin, the root of all sins, and the greatest sin. 
Unbelief is the greatest sin, said the old divines. 
This may be only another way of expressing the 
same truth. Unbelief says, ^7 may be right; if I 
eat the fruit, my eyes may be opened and I shall be 
like God ; he may be concealing something delight- 
ful and necessary for me under this prohibition. 
God is not to be fully believed or trusted always." 
This is an excessive exaltation of the self. "Sin is 
an undue individuation of self"; this is the same 
truth in other words : "Sin is the exaggeration of 
individuality." 

In an act of sin the schoolmen found three steps : 
suggestion, delectation, and consent. Suggestion 
means that some object of desire is present or some 
course of conduct appears as enjoyable or profit- 
able, which is really wrong ; there is no sin in this, 
though temptation is present. So the kingdoms of 
the world were presented to our Lord as something 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 7t 

desirable. Delectation means that one thinks about 
this; it stays in his mind and he wants it or is 
pleased with it, as Eve was with the appearance 
of the fruit. During this process the temptation is 
gaining power, and in this longing for something 
forbidden sin begins. Finally one consents and 
takes the object or adopts the course of conduct. 
This may be all internal, and then follows the out- 
ward or physical act necessary to execute the choice, 
whether it be stealing, murder, or something not 
criminal. In the first step there is no sin. Satan 
suggested that stones be made bread ; Jesus refused 
the suggestion without entertaining it or desiring 
any interruption of the course of nature in his 
behalf, or anything besides the Father's will. In 
the second step, when people begin to wish for the 
wrong thing, hesitate, dally, loiter in thought around 
the forbidden object, sin begins; in the last it is 
completed in the mind ; then it is sin whether it is 
ever carried into outer execution or not. All this 
is strikingly portrayed in the story of Achan (Josh. 
7. 21). He says, "I saw"; the gold was there; 
there was no harm in seeing. Some pray, ^'Lead 
us not into temptation," meaning, let not the inner 
desire for a wrong thing and the outward oppor- 
tunity to gratify that desire come at the same time. 
Then he says, "I coveted"; he wanted it so intensely 
that he wondered how he could get it ; here sin be- 
gan. Third, "I took"; the outward act soon fol- 
lowed. The fourth and last step was a necessity. 
Then, 'T hid"; and he was found out. It should 
be plain that temptation is not sin; one may be 



n AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

tempted and not sin. Jesus was tempted and yielded 
not. Such temptation is outward or arises through 
innocent appetites and needs of body or mind. If 
there is weakened or perverted appetite, a propensity 
to sin through previous yielding or on account of the 
yielding of ancestors, the temptation is much 
stronger. Jesus had no such temptation; he was 
tempted as one who had never sinned and had never 
felt inherited sin in his nature. Yet he was tried as 
an innocent man in a world of hateful sinners. 

It is now possible to say a word about that trou- 
blesome phrase, ''living without sin." "If matters 
not really belonging to the question of entire sanc- 
tification are ruled out, we shall find that just two 
points need investigation: (a) What scriptural 
ground is there for the belief that the Christian 
may in this life be delivered from the moral de- 
pravity which he inherited as a member of a fallen 
race? (b) How far and in what sense may the 
believer be kept in this life, through grace, from 
the commission of sin?"^ The second question may 
now be answered from the author's standpoint. 
One should and may live without intentional or 
voluntary sin from the time he becomes a Christian. 
All things considered and human weakness being 
as it is, it is not likely that he will so live. He 
may reach that point later. Wesley says that the 
young Christian can live without committing volun- 
tary sin "while he keeps himself." He will proba- 
bly not live many years without lapses or falls of 
some sort — sin (A3) ; yet in some lives these may 

1 McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia, vol. ix, p. 332. 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN :iz 

become extremely few or vanish at last, when a 
person is old and out of active life. He may reduce, 
as his wisdom and experience grow, the number of 
inadvertent sins or sins of ignorance ; he will never 
live long in this life without falling into some of 
these. John Wesley, Daniel Steele, and most, if 
not all, of the prominent Methodist writers on this 
subject agree on this, though they state it in dif- 
ferent language. Wesley calls these sins involun- 
tary transgressions ; the actor does not mean to do 
wrong. Being cleansed from it one may live with- 
out inbred sin, part (a), and should; he will not 
in the flesh ever be free from all inbred sin in- 
cluded under part (b) ; this means that some in- 
firmity will cling to him throughout life. The use 
of these letters in the description of inbred sin will 
be found near the beginning of the following chap- 
ter. How much of these effects will always remain 
cannot be told for a particular person; it may and 
should be a continually diminishing measure. In- 
firmity is not voluntary sin, but is often the result 
of sin in the race. If one defines sin so as to include 
only a part of sin, a willful choice of evil in clear 
light, somewhat deliberate, he may easily say that he 
lives without sin. A friend who was learning to be a 
marksman spent considerable time shooting at a tar- 
get; he used to say he could hit the mark every 
shot some shots. If a Christian affirms that he 
lives for a time without a voluntary transgression 
of a known law of God — ^known to him — he may be 
entirely correct; his actual living must decide that 
point. The most skeptical thinker as well as the 



74 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

most scrupulously careful ethical philosopher need 
not hesitate to believe that such an assertion may be 
true. There is no fanaticism about that. 

Some distinctions have been noted which exist or 
seem to exist in the idea of sin ; a variety of mean- 
ings have been marked off with letters so that they 
can be temporarily referred to. It would be very 
acceptable if the word "sin" had only one meaning 
and had always been used with that meaning. It 
is left to others to search out appropriate names 
for the other meanings of sin subsequent to the 
first here given and to secure their universal adop- 
tion henceforth by all writers and speakers on the 
subject. The first three meanings besides inbred 
sin, with the recognition of the biological idea of 
sin, answer well for nearly all purposes of discus- 
sion. The common words for sin, both in the Old 
Testament and in the New Testament, meaning to 
miss the mark, include, with voluntary sin, sins of 
weakness, ignorance, and negligence. These shades 
of meaning are often not separated in terminology 
or thought. A man may miss the mark when he is 
trying to hit it as surely as when he is not trying. 
There is one Hebrew word which never is used of 
the sin of ignorance, but always refers to sin that 
has rebellion in it; it is often pictured as sin "with 
a high hand and an outstretched arm." 

For the sake of clearness the word "sin" will be 
used throughout this treatise, when the distinctions 
are required, in the senses given and with the modi- 
fying word or letter to show which is meant. When 
the context shows the meaning or a general mean- 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN 75 

ing of sin is wanted, including several of the fore- 
going specifications, the word ''sin" will be used by 
itself. There is little, if any, trouble from am- 
biguity with the plural, sins, which are always acts, 
or with the verb; the ambiguity is with sin in the 
singular number. Sin in the sense of original sin 
will always have a modifying word, and other 
phrases to be given are used for the same idea with- 
out the word "sin." 

Sin varies in sinfulness or heinousness with the 
ability and sound condition of the sinner ; with the 
clearness of the sinner's knowledge of the law, and, 
it is possible to add, with the prevision of the evil 
consequences; with the attractiveness of the in- 
ducement or the temptation; with the deliberate- 
ness of the choice, the premeditation ; with the ex- 
tent of the choice, including its scope and duration, 
whether it be for a day, a year, or a life; whether 
it is a single act or a series of acts ; and with the 
intensity of the choice or its irrevocable nature and 
the malicious spirit in it. All these elements deter- 
mine the venial nature or the blackness, the inso- 
lence, and willful meanness of the sin. There are 
innumerable varieties, degrees, and shades of sin; 
one could scarcely catalogue them all; only some 
of the more prominent species have been men- 
tioned ; for other forms the reader may refer to the 
many possible attitudes of intdlect and will to the 
moral law as already given. There are degrees of 
sin, from slight opposition to or the ignoring of the 
will of God, all the way to deep-seated rebellion 
against the Most High, stiff-necked and chronic j 



^(^ AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

sins "with a high hand and an outstretched arm''; 
there are vigly, diaboHcal sins; there are sins of 
impulse regretted at once by the sinner ; there are 
sins deHberate, premeditated, and embodying long- 
cherished and bitter revenge and undying hatred. 
And there is for all mankind a salvation to the 
uttermost greater than all this fountain of a race's 
sin and iniquity; and it is for each penitent one 
now. "God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life." In 
the complex situations of life, with many elements 
combined in the transgressor, with the outward cir- 
cumstances and temptations of the modern political 
and business world, only God can determine the 
blameworthiness of any act and properly affix the 
penalty. 

These forms, varieties, and shades of sin in 
human conduct have been presented, not for the 
sake of undue refinement in definition, but to im- 
press the thought that an act of sin is a very com- 
plex act. Sin in everyday life does not conform 
itself to the scholar's terms ; it runs wild and lawless. 
The theologian in his study may say, "Sin is the 
voluntary transgression of a known law"; so it is, 
but it does not appear in actual conduct in a form as 
bare and logical as this proposition ; it blossoms out 
in all manner of ways. It is doubtful if there is 
ever a pure and simple state of sin in real life 
such as the moralist posits in his scholastic concept. 
It is difficult even to find "straight lines" in nature 
according to the definition of the geometry. Hence 



DEFINITIONS OF SIN ^^ 

we wish to advocate the biological view of sin 
rather than the logical. Think of sin as we find 
it in the world of working, striving, lusting, sweat- 
ing, cursing, weeping men and women, not as the 
student has analyzed it into elements for the sake 
of understanding it or talking about it. In the 
mixture of motives, passions, appetites of body, 
ambitions of soul, fluctuations of will, impulse, and 
deliberation, and concurrence of circumstances 
favoring or hindering one's course, there is infinite 
variety and combination in the completed act of 
sin. We do well not to try to comprehend this 
varied human life under the form of mathematics 
or formal logic merely, but under the variety, 
change, and movement of biology. As in a plant 
one cannot always tell certainly where the next leaf 
will come or the branch start or the blossom appear, 
so the ethical philosopher or psychological investi- 
gator cannot discern in the soul and separate into 
right component parts the great mass of tangled 
roots in an act of sin. There are the past life of 
the race or one's sin-damaged nature, the personal 
life hitherto or one's acquired depravity or good 
character, the results of education, the caprice of 
the individual will and emotions and lusts combined 
with the social conditions or situation at the time. 
These and other elements will often burst out into 
some new florescence of sin. Sin in a life, even of 
church members, is often a tropical luxuriant 
growth overrunning the soul, not the accurate, nice- 
ly trimmed, tame affair made — in Germany — to fit 
the theologian's statement. "Sin" is a big word, 



78 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

big in content and extent, like the word "civiliza- 
tion"; it is not capable of a narrow or strictly- 
logical definition, like the mathematician's definition 
of a triangle. The corresponding truth also is 
premised here that the divine life in the soul is not 
a small affair capable of exact description, the same 
for every person ; but it is a large, varied, overflow- 
ing, and abundant life adapted to every soul. It is 
best to hold a biological conception of holiness and 
full salvation as well as of sin. 



CHAPTER III 
Inbred Sin : Its Nature and Removal 

The general subject of heredity, and in particular 
the descent of good and bad traits, is not well 
understood. The skeins of individual and racial life 
have become so badly tangled and the threads of 
innate and willful inclination to rebellion against 
God and of men's hatred of each other and selfish- 
nesses have become so knotted that no one has been 
able to straighten them out in theory or practice. 
There is no book known to the author containing a 
clear exposition, detailed and consistent, of original 
or inbred sin or the great racial impairment, show- 
ing its nature, relation to sinning, to infirmities or 
weakness, and to those results of sin in the race 
which are not commonly included in the term ''in- 
bred sin." Some able writers decline the attempt 
to define the term. Our purpose with this part of 
the theme is to do what is practicable; to notice 
some needful distinctions and some errors, and to 
clear the ground sufficiently to make it possible to 
proceed, and to leave the rest as an unexplored 
remainder for others to investigate. 

Inbred sin (S) is sin as a state revealing itself 
in actions ; probably no logical or generic definition 
can be given. The seventh of the Articles of Reli- 
gion of the Methodist Episcopal Church is entitled 
''Of Original or Birth Sin," and reads thus : "Orig- 

79 



So AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

inal sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as 
the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corrup- 
tion of the nature of every man, that naturally is 
engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man 
is very far gone from original righteousness, and 
of his own nature inclined to evil, and that con- 
tinually." For use in the present discussion the 
following descriptive definition is given; Inbred 
sin denotes (a) the corrupted or vitiated state of 
nature which consists in an innate tendency or bent 
to self-will in all the descendants of Adam, except 
the world's Saviour, and which shows itself in the 
conduct in wrong actions called in Gal. 5. 19-21 
*'works of the flesh." Inbred sin (b) also includes 
all other evil effects in the disordered nature at 
birth and all weakness and defects of mind and 
body due to the transgressions of our first parents 
and of the race to the present time. It should be 
noticed that this abnormal state manifests itself 
in the social institutions developed by sin-corrupted 
man, usually in great ignorance of absolute right- 
eousness or the rule of love, as in slavery, in some 
relations of the sexes in and out of wedlock, in 
caste, and in some of his legal and educational sys- 
tems. There is no disposition to deny that very 
much of good also, much that is not due to past 
sin, is in these institutions. Part (a) is the aliena- 
tion inherited from ancestors, or, on its other side, 
proneness to disobedience. Each person's choice or 
consent aids in the manifestation and strengthening 
of this tendency in early life. Part (b) means the 
accompanying effects of the alienation which ances- 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 8i 

tors had, and all other inheritance from the past 
as far as it is damage to mind and body or weak- 
ness due to sin. This depravity or inbred sin does 
not bring guilt at birth, since the irresponsible evil 
state is covered by the atonement made for the 
whole race. ''There is moral ruin in this state, but 
no demerit or damnable sin," according to Dr.Miley. 
All weakness and limitation of mind and body which 
belong to finiteness, or to normal man in his order 
in creation, and might exist had there been no vol- 
untary sin in the race, are not included in the 
definition. In dealing with the problem of heredity 
reference is made only to man's whole constitution 
as affected by sin in the race. The child inherits 
something besides original sin, though by this his 
whole nature is or may be more or less affected. In 
the present state of knowledge it is often impossible 
— but not always — to draw exact lines of demarca- 
tion between what is depraved inheritance and what 
is natural or normal ; it is not the intention here to 
enter upon a full discussion of one's total inherit- 
ance, as to the preponderance of good or bad quali- 
ties, as to strength or weakness, genius or imbe- 
cility, or upon the old historical controversies. One 
should not forget that all the noble tendencies and 
traits at birth are inherited from the past and all 
the powers with which one can glorify God and 
serve mankind. Another distinction is sufficiently 
important and useful to be noticed here. Sin (Si) 
denotes also the state of the responsible person 
habitually sinning, the personal or acquired sinful 
state ; it is the personal aggravation or enlargement 



82 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of inbred sin. This acquired evil state can properly 
be called sinful. 

The sinward tendency is a state felt in conscious- 
ness as causing evil thoughts, words, and actions, 
and supposed to be descended from the first human 
pair. The existence of such a state is in our belief 
a universal experience; it is certainly universal 
among those, at least, heathen or Christian, who 
strive for a purer life or the kingdom of God. It 
persists in unchangeable validity independent and 
regardless of all theories and traditions respecting 
its origin. The Adamic origin has been set forth 
in theology, undoubtedly with much Scripture sup- 
port, for the fountain of evil within, out of which 
issue evil thoughts, words, and actions. Like the 
atoms or the ether of scientific speculation, the 
beginning of this condition with the theories built 
about it is a matter of theological speculation and 
is veiled in obscurity and cannot be brought into 
court to give a complete account of itself. Like 
other origins, it vanishes into hoary antiquity and 
possibly hides itself behind the physical in the 
metaphysical. What is actually felt in conscious- 
ness as a bent to wickedness is in part assumed to 
be descended from Adam, or believed to be de- 
scended from him, on evidence which does not con- 
vince everybody, as objectors would say. More or 
fewer other features are added to the theory ; then, 
as an hypothesis, it is posited to explain the phe- 
nomena of the sinning soul. This is a manifestation 
of the deep desire of the human mind for unity 
in grasping groups of facts. The outward mani- 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 83 

festations of the evil-inclined nature are not so 
invisible, elusive, or provocative of endless disputes 
as the source and nature of this fountain of evil. 

This doctrine as usually held presupposes the 
unity of the human race, and in the first pair a 
transgression of a command of God seen by us to 
be equivalent to opposition knowingly to Absolute 
Reason as v^ell as their own reason. It presupposes, 
further, great loss and injury to them in mind and 
afterward in body, and that some effect of this 
condition is transmitted by procreation to all their 
descendants except the Christ. 

Part (a) is inbred sin in the narrow sense; it is 
the positive, active, and aggressive element. It 
may be called inherited sinward tendency or innate 
bent to sin, disobedience, or lawlessness, and will 
be frequently referred to in some of these terms. 
This state may be appropriately named inborn 
alienation or estrangement from God, or entailed 
law-breaking, law-ignoring, or intractable depravity. 
This item may probably be distinguished from the 
other effects of ancestral sin by this characteristic, 
that it consists in a latent predisposition to rebellion 
against God or moral order ; and it tends directly to 
betray man into intentional sinning. It certainly 
concerns the will largely, and probably some other 
activities of the being. The writer wished to make 
it equivalent to the Pauline phrase "old man," or 
the "indwelling sin'' of the seventh chapter of 
Romans; but a careful exegesis shows that these 
Scripture phrases include not only inherited tend- 
ency to disobedience, but also acquired tendency; 



84 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

that IS, they cover the personal yielding and 
wicked practices of the persons addressed in the 
epistles during their pre-Christian or heathen 
lives. The tendency to disobedience mentioned 
above must be sharply distinguished from the blind 
impulse or inclination of innocent natural appetites 
to seek gratification, usually and probably always 
without a reference to any divine commandment. 
Hunger, the desire for pleasure and comfort, 
mental and physical, and similar appetites crave 
their appropriate objects; for this is their function. 
These appetences in normal degree are not sin- 
ful, and are not equivalent to a leaning or tendency 
to go contrary to the will of God. The inherited 
tendency to indulge one's appetite rather than to 
obey God when the two conflict, and especially when 
they are known to conflict, is the bent to sinning 
referred to above. Part (b) is inbred sin in the 
wide sense; it is probably rather the negative or 
passive part. This includes all the other efifects of 
the fall; it denotes the many-sided disorder or im- 
pairment and the complex or manifold manifesta- 
tions, forms, and developments of racial sin. This 
can be appropriately named law-abiding or tractable 
depravity, or simply degeneracy. Some of this im- 
pairment, as the dulled mind nearly impenetrable 
by the truth about God or led astray by false doc- 
trines, is called corrupt in the Scriptures, as in 2 
Cor. II. 3. 

There are many names for this state besides 
original or inbred sin. It is known as common 
or collective sin or evil, inherited sin, and depravity ; 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 85 

ingrained sin would be an appropriate name ; racial 
sin answers the purpose. Depravity is a very good 
name if certain historical associations and implica- 
tions can be omitted, as they are in the writer's use 
of it. There is no objection to the terms proposed 
by some, as ''hereditary depravity," or, "ancestral 
sin." It should never be forgotten that the content 
of the term "inbred or original sin" in theology is 
by no means the same as that of the Pauline phrases 
"old man," "law of sin which is in my members," 
or "body of sin." The former is a more inclusive 
term; and, as originally presented, it included the 
idea that the whole race was by it rendered guilty 
and fit for eternal damnation. 

It is the writer's wish to include in the descrip- 
tion given everything wrong or sin-disordered about 
man, as an individual and in social relations, every- 
thing imperfect or weak caused by the first inten- 
tional sin and the sins of the race up to the present 
generation or the person concerned ; then we know 
as a whole what we are talking about; there are 
no loopholes left for something else to be slipped 
in or smuggled out in subsequent statements. 

Pardon an interruption here for a single historical 
reference. The Westminster Confession makes 
original sin to consist in three elements or points: 
I. The guilt of Adam's sin. 2. The inherited de- 
pravity of the soul. 3. The damage done to the 
body. The theory which afiirms the guilt of all 
Adam's posterity deserving eternal damnation for 
the sin of the first pair, we do not accept; this is 
the teaching of the ninth of the Thirty-nine Articles 



86. AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of the Church of England. This was the view of 
Augustine and afterward of Calvin. This theolog- 
ical doctrine was connected in the philosophy of the 
schoolmen with the theory of realism, which holds 
that universal concepts have real existence; this 
philosophical theory is not commonly held now. 
According to Wesley probably Saint Chrysostom 
or Saint Hilary first made use of the term ^'original 
sin," peccatum originale; afterward Augustine 
made it popular. 

The writer's description of original sin is not 
made with the conceit that it is an improvement on 
those of the great Confessions; or on that con- 
tained in the seventh article of the Articles of Re- 
ligion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which 
Wesley abbreviated from the ninth article of the 
Church of England. Nor is it made with the con- 
fident belief that it will be generally accepted. It 
is made with a view to clearness and to give the 
reader as nearly as possible the thought of the 
writer. Some of the popular statements to-day 
include only a part of the results of the first sin, 
and most of the great Confessions add that inherited 
sin brings guilt, or are expressed in terms not 
conveying clear ideas or not consonant with mod- 
ern ways of viewing the world, like the phrase 
''original righteousness." We have followed the 
great Confessions of the churches and the historical 
meaning of the term, emptying it of little but 
the guilt for Adam's sin and bringing out explicitly 
what seems to be implicit in them. Wesley had 
it all in his defense of original sin against Taylor. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 87 

The phrase 'Very far gone from original right- 
eousness" is omitted, because the meaning is not 
clear; no one knows what "original righteousness" 
was; that state is incapable of scientific investiga- 
tion; no one observed it and the Bible has little 
to say about it. Christ's righteousness, on the other 
hand, or his mode of life, is capable of scientific 
investigation by historical methods sufficiently for 
practical purposes. The conduct of the race which 
is below Christ's standard of living constitutes a 
fall of man; the race universally falls short of 
normal living. ''Original righteousness" must mean 
that condition at creation called "good" by the 
Creator. This surely does not mean merely that 
man had a right will, a normally poised will inclined 
by nature to obedience and love, but that his body 
was sound, that his mind was clear on moral truth 
and in the practical conception of God and his 
commands, and that his ethical emotions were in 
proper balance. If this is the correct interpretation, 
part (b) of our definition is in the seventh Article 
of Religion. 

Some object justly to the use of the word "sin" 
in the phrase "inbred sin," and say there is no 
inbred sin or sin born in us, inasmuch as sin is a 
voluntary act. It would be our preference to have 
the word "sin" in the singular number, as it is 
in the plural restricted to the personal act, the 
transgression of the law; but this has not been 
the practice of theologians. In what sense, then, 
are the effects of voluntary sin to be accounted sin? 
We mean such effects as the sinward tendency 



88 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

in man, the ''reprobate mind" of Rom. i. 28, 
weakness of will and perverted appetites, and in 
the body tuberculosis, leprosy, and other diseases 
and probably death ; especially death in cases where 
''bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half 
their days/' The ethical side of death, not merely 
bodily dissolution, is to be prominent in the thought 
here. Some of the punishment of sin in God's plan 
is more sinning and certain consequences of sin. 
There are consequences also to others than the sin- 
ning subject which are not punishment, but simply 
sufifering. Or how can these effects be called sin, 
seeing they are not voluntary acts? There is no 
sin without a sinner, some affirm; true, but with 
inbred sin the sinner was in the preceding genera- 
tion. A few points must be premised before the 
direct answer is given. These evils and the ruined 
or weak condition are not called sin in this book 
without a qualifying word to distinguish them from 
voluntary sin, or sin as an act (sin A). The writer 
is not particular about the name applied to this 
damaged condition, but the close connection be- 
tween this and voluntary sin must never be over- 
looked. 

In referring to the physical side only those dis- 
eases and disabilities are included which are due 
to racial sin or personal sins; not those which 
individuals might suffer from had there never been 
sin in the race. To distinguish specific cases now 
may be frequently impossible, but there are doubt- 
less diseases or weakness not the product of sinning. 
"Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 89 

his parents/' *'that he was born bhnd'' (John 9. 3). 
Animals are nonmoral creatures and have diseases 
even in the wild state. Probably man might have 
had disease without sinning. The interesting ques- 
tion then comes, Would his holy spirit have been 
powerful enough to control the material in him 
and easily cure or banish disease? Into this ques- 
tion we cannot enter here. In what sense is the 
innate depravity or depravation sin ? In an accom- 
modated or tropical sense characteristic of the Ori- 
ental mind and common in the Bible. Other words 
and comparisons are used in the same manner. 
''For he hath m^ade him to be sin for us, who knew 
no sin" (2 Cor. 5. 21). "Is the law sin? God 
forbid'' (Rom. 7. 7). Is inbred sin voluntary sin? 
God forbid. ''For this Agar is mount Sinai in 
Arabia'' (Gal. 4. 25). In the fourth chapter of 
Romans faith is counted for righteousness, and both 
righteousness and sin may be imputed. "For the 
fine linen is the righteousness of saints" (Rev. 

19.8). 

What right, then, have we to call unavoidable 
consequences visited upon an innocent party sin? 
It is misfortune imdoubtedly. A repetition of this 
question in several specific forms may throw light 
lipon the answers. In what sense is the cancerous 
stomach or stupid mind or paralyzed brain of the 
confirmed inebriate sin? of the inebriate who not 
having an inborn appetite for liquor has made him- 
self a drunkard? of the inebriate who having an 
innate craving for drink, a generally weakened sys- 
tem, and bad digestion, has yielded and become a 



90 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

victim of chronic alcoholism? In what sense is 
tuberculosis sin when a drinking man has for ten 
years lain in the field and gutters in rain and cold 
and contracted it? If any prove that a craving 
for drink is not inherited from parents or ancestors 
who had strong appetite for liquor, that does not 
change the sense of the question or destroy the 
correctness of the view. If as a result of the 
inebriety in parents the offspring starts in life with 
impaired digestion, or a shattered nervous system, 
a tendency to epilepsy or semi-idiocy, or other 
weakness, it confirms the view or hypothesis and 
shows the transmission of an evil state or disease 
or disordered functions just the same, or a predis- 
position to these. *'In sin did my mother conceive 
me,'' said the psalmist; some suffering men must 
admit, "In whisky did my mother conceive me." 
Adam "begat a son in his own likeness, after his 
image.'' Medical observation and studies in heredi- 
ty show the wretchedness and filth and degeneration 
of some human offspring so terrifically that even 
dull human eyes may see the inborn, sin-ruined, and 
depraved mental faculties and bodily organs. No 
wonder the name "sin" has been applied to it, 
though it is not the voluntary sin of the sufferer. 
This question touches really the problem of the rela- 
tion of the individual to the race and of God's 
dealing with people not as isolated individuals but 
as members of a race. God never overlooks the 
race connection, though some twentieth century 
theology may overlook it. A hint of transmitted 
consequences of evil with its reproduction through 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 91 

environment and tradition, the collective evil, seems 
to be in such Scripture passages as this: *'The 
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15. 

16). 

In reply to the above question are the following 
statements : 

Ans. I. Inbred sin is sin in the sense of being a 
state in the moral, physical, and mental constitution 
of man contrary to the will and wish of God and 
caused by rebellion against God in the race; it is 
a state which has and merits God's disapproval, as 
the divine workman sees his work fundamentally 
marred, not '*good'' as he made it. Inbred sin has 
the relation to voluntary sin of the fruit to the tree, 
and also of this fruit to a future tree. One might 
include these results as a part of the original act 
of sin; they are in the completed act; the act is 
not completed in the first generation. It is a far- 
reaching act, entailing untold suffering. ^'Sin, when 
it is finished [perfected], bringeth forth death" 
(James i. 15). The incendiary's act is not merely 
lighting the first building, but all the resulting con- 
flagration. Sin is such an act that once performed 
many innocent persons must suffer, even God him- 
self, who is never tempted or tainted by sin. 

Ans. 2. Inbred sin is sin in the sense that, like vol- 
untary sin, it partially hinders its possessor from 
doing the will of God and being a worthy son ; it 
renders it morally certain that the sufferer will 
engage in sinning. 

Ans. 3. It IS sin in the sense that it is an abnormal 
state, a state of depravation and weakness from 



92 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

which each needs to be saved and which requires 
an atonement to set it right before a holy God. 
Infirmities need the atonement. ^'Himself took our 
infirmities, and bare our sicknesses" (Matt. 8. 17). 
Man is born in a state cursed by sin, produced by 
intentional as well as unintentional sins of ancestors 
and a state producing with his consent personal sin 
or inclined to produce it ; this state always has given 
rise to personal sin. 

Ans. 4. Inbred sin is not sin in the sense of a 
transgression of the law; as there is no personal 
action there is no personal guilt. In the Old Testa- 
ment times on their view of the solidarity of the 
tribe it would be easy to count a child of sinners a 
sinner, especially when their conception of justice 
was that a whole family, like Achan's, could be 
killed for the crime of the head of the family. It 
is easy for the historical student to see how in the 
old Augustinian theology the name "sin" would be 
attached to the state, for they really believed that 
all the race sinned in Adam. The name continues 
while its content changes. 

THE NATURE OF INBRED SIN 

This is one of the most abstruse subjects in the- 
ology ; the Bible never uses the term. Heredity, of 
which this subject is a part, is little understood. 
The best we can do with a depraved condition is 
to get rid of it in practice at once, and to spend 
as little time as possible theorizing about its origin. 
We would not devote so much space to it here had 
it not played so large a part in theology in the past. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 93 

and especially in discussions of the higher Christian 
Hfe. The ground must be cleared to some extent 
before a proper exposition of full salvation is feasi- 
ble. If one wishes to investigate this subject, he 
should study it experimentally like the naturalists, 
like Charles Darwin or Luther Burbank. It is not 
illuminating to speculate about it in a close room 
lined with dusty books. For controversialists to 
throw "proof-texts" at one another does not throw 
light upon this theme. Inbred sin may be described 
in terms of the enlargement of the self; of the 
disarrangement of the faculties, the loss of the 
proper balance between spiritual and fleshly powers ; 
in terms of the higher self losing control of the 
lower self; of the animal ruling the spirit. It is a 
reign of passion and unbridled license instead of 
reason. *'A reasonable being ought to act reason- 
ably." The Latin name of this interior disturbance 
in old theosophy was turba, the opposite of the 
Scripture term "peace." The nature of this sin-dis- 
ordered condition is well described by Bishop R. S. 
Foster; his account is abbreviated: 

"What, then, is that depravity of which regenera- 
tion is the incipient cure?" The term "stands for 
a state of man's soul which ensued upon the first 
sin as its effect. Not a physical effect, such as the 
addition or subtraction of some entity or faculty to 
or from it, but rather a change wrought in the order 
and harmony of its faculties and in their relations to 
each other. It is that derangement of man's moral 
nature, induced by his transgression, whereby the 
harmonious acting of all the attributes of his soul 



94 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

has become warped and perverted ; so that they no 
longer cheerfully and implicitly obey the divine re- 
quirements, but rise up in opposition to that which 
is holy, just, and good. Let us illustrate: The soul 
possesses two classes of faculties, which may be de- 
fined superior and inferior. The superior are the 
intellectual and moral powers, as judgment, con- 
science, will; the inferior are propensities and ap- 
petites of the body. In the holy, unf alien soul, the 
superior ruled and regulated the inferior; and it is 
this order which constitutes that soul a holy soul. . . . 
An effect of its sin consisted in this, that it became 
immediately conscious of the withdrawment of God 
from its fellowship. As when the lights are extin- 
guished the temple becomes dark, so when God 
withdrew his presence the soul became darkened; 
the regulator being removed the powers of the soul 
became confused, the inferior faculties usurped the 
place of the superior, the blinded and revolutionized 
soul called good evil and evil good, sense became 
supreme, and with a mad sway held reason and 
conscience subject. Harmony with God was broken, 
and everything was the reverse of right. That is 
depravity, or the carnal mind."^ 

One should be particular to include with the 
account just given the darkening of the mind which 
is the inevitable result of ancestral sin as well as 
of personal sinning. 'Their foolish heart was 
darkened" (Rom. i. 21). The sinful race has a 
''reprobate or rejected mind," a mind "void of 
judgment"; that is, no longer adequate as an in- 

* Christian Purity, pp. 123-125. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 95 

strument for discerning moral and spiritual truth 
and no longer recognizing God's nature and charac- 
ter. They have the ''understanding darkened" ; they 
are "alienated from the life of God because of the 
ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness 
[blindness or callousness] of their heart" (Eph. 4. 
18, A. V. and Am. R. V. combined). Out of this 
fountain flow the great sins of idolatry and the 
two great manifestations of voluntary sin in hea- 
thendom and in all the world, social impurity and 
covetousness. Man having lost God as an intimate 
friend has been wearied and cursed with doubts of 
his own immortality. 

It is also a great error, the Manichaean heresy, 
to hold that evil inheres in matter. Such is not 
Paul's teaching in regard to the flesh. After show- 
ing that a refined sensuality cannot be affirmed of 
all elements included under Paul's term "the flesh," 
Neander says : "And even if in all these attempts 
we detected the workings of a refined sensuality, 
that tendency which, while cleaving to outward 
objects, could not rise to the pure inward religion 
of the spirit, still we find that in the Corinthian 
church, also, the apostle traced to the flesh every- 
thing which either openly or secretly opposed Chris- 
tianity, not excepting even the speculative Grecian 
tendency, 'to seek wisdom,' which treated the simple 
gospel with contempt. From all these considera- 
tions, we may infer with certainty that something 
more than sensuality was included in the Pauline 
idea of the flesh. . . . Paul detected in the philo- 
sophic conceit of the Greeks, which with all its 



96 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

striving could not pass beyond the bounds of earthly- 
existence, and satisfied itself without finding the 
highest good, which alone can give true satisfaction 
to the mind, and in the arrogance of the imaginary 
legal righteousness of the Jews, the same principle 
of the flesh as in the thirst for sensual pleasure."^ 

Sin is lawlessness. It is lawlessness in the will 
of the first transgressor, in the first place; it is 
then lawlessness in the operations of the intellect 
and the workings of the emotions; unbelief, wrong 
views of God, fear and shame soon appear; it is 
lawlessness in the bodily life. At the same time 
lawlessness extends to all the social relations of the 
members of the race. In fact, primitive man, as 
known to us, could not conceive of nature as a 
cosmos; but it appeared to him as a chaos with 
no order in it. The mental confusion and darkness 
about moral subjects and the physical disabilities 
and misery, as well as the guilt, are included in the 
idea of original sin in the great Confessions of the 
Lutheran and Reformed Churches and of the 
Church of England. Wesley included all these points 
in his defense of the doctrine in the fifth volume of 
his works. Wesleyans now and moderate Calvinists 
reject the idea that this depravity brings guilt. 

Can one inherit ignorance or sin, voluntary sin? 
Certainly not the latter; people do not speak of 
inheriting ignorance or knowledge. But one may 
inherit powers whetted for knowledge or investiga- 
tion, or capable through ancestral use of acquiring 



^ History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by 
the Apostles, vol. i, p. 421. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 97 

learning, or skill, in general or in certain specialized 
forms, more or less easily, as in piano-playing. Or 
one may inherit powers or faculties not capable of 
acquiring abstract and highly generalized knowl- 
edge, as most Indians and Africans of bygone gen- 
erations seem to have inherited from the past and 
many members of the other races. One may inherit 
powers not very capable of grasping a spiritual idea 
of God; thus the ''darkened understanding'' may be 
transmitted from generation to generation. It is as 
easy to inherit dull intellectual faculties, a beclouded 
mind which cannot easily or naturally conceive of 
God in accordance with the truth, his spiritual char- 
acter and demands, as to inherit self-directive 
powers inclined to conform to no standard but one's 
caprice. Likewise everyone inherits a nature in- 
clined to lawlessness, to do as one pleases; and 
some inherit a very deep-seated disposition to be 
stubborn; as both men and animals inherit an in- 
stinct of fear in varying degrees. Some people 
naturally tend to lack of self-control, and some to 
rebel against all order and moral government by 
parents and the state and by God himself. While 
future study may yield a clearer view and give more 
detailed knowledge of the nature of depravity, we 
believe that as a general account the above contains 
the truth. 

Although this subject is complicated and dark, it 
is possible to point out some erroneous views. In- 
bred sin seems to be spoken of sometimes as if it 
were a physical thing, a chunk of something, which 
the Lord removes at a certain stage of Christian 



98 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

exf^erience, called entire sanctification ; then, if the 
Christian goes to sinning again, the Lord puts it 
back into him. Nothing could be further from a 
sensible view. That view or theory of inbred sin 
is a great error which describes it as "an indivisible 
unit, an entity and the state of an entity, alike in 
everybody. Christian and heathen." No such afifair 
is known to theology, science, or the Bible; such 
unit is a fanciful distortion of recondite phe- 
nomena. To bother earnest inquirers after a 
higher Christian life with such views is a pitiable 
mistake ; it would be much better to give them "the 
Bread of Life at once rather than a stone from our 
theological quarry." The only merit of this theory 
is that it is simple, not that it is true. Its popularity 
is due to the fact that it is simple. Anyone can 
preach it after he has heard it told, and illiterate 
people can understand it or imagine they do and 
be persuaded to act on it. Nevertheless it is false 
to fact, and presents, as if simple and easy of 
comprehension, some of the most complicated and 
perplexing facts of human life. It thus misrepre- 
sents both human experience and the Bible. 

REMOVAL OF INBRED SIN 

What is one to believe about the removal of 
inbred sin in this life? One has not all the light 
desirable on this question as well as on many other 
points connected with depravity; one can state 
some things with certainty; on other points it is 
safer for us not to dogmatize and not to reproach 
with lack of right purpose or high Christian attain- 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 99 

ment those who may not agree with us. The ques- 
tions one especially wants answered are: Can all 
the effects of racial sin be removed in this life ; if 
so, how, and how soon? 

Our answer is that the innate tendency to law- 
lessness — inbred sin (a) — may and should be re- 
moved in this life before death. This means that 
the removal is a possibility for Christians, if they 
choose, who have proper instruction and ordinary 
opportunity for spiritual attainment and growth. 
The other effects, the many-sided manifestations or 
development of depravity — inbred sin (b) — may be 
removed more or less completely, usually not wholly 
removed. The completeness of the triumph over 
the evils received from the past varies with people 
and circumstances, with the power of faith with 
which one apprehends Christ, and with knowledge 
and skill in discipleship. Some of these evil effects 
in body and mind doubtless linger to the end of 
life, and in most people very many effects. These 
phases of depravity should always be a diminishing 
quantity in the life of the Christian. Then out of 
the total effect of Adam's fall a single effect is 
destroyed from the conscious life; much of the 
disorder or of the degeneracy remains. 

The following statements present the same truth 
from another standpoint. Inbred or original sin is 
not a biblical term. It refers to a theory in the- 
ology, a genuine Calvinistic tenet, and has passed 
through many changes and variations during its 
long history. A great difference exists between 
these theories of men and the biblical statement of 

t«rc. 



loo AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the fact of the universality of sin in the race. The 
fact may be held with a variety of views as to 
the cause of the fact. Jesus did not teach much on 
this subject that has come down to us. Paul often 
referred to the universality of sin or a sin principle 
under the names *'old man," *'body of sin/' and 
the like. Some Old Testament writers had observed 
enough to see that the race was warped and went 
astray morally from birth. The facts of the Bible 
and the facts of accurate and extended observation 
concerning man's sin-inclined nature we accept ; we 
do not accept all that has been put forth in theology 
under the doctrine of inbred or original sin. 
Human speculations have been numerous in this 
line since Augustine and Pelagius wrote. The part 
this doctrine has played in church history in differ- 
ent eras and the leading theories about original sin 
are familiar to us. Therefore, it is wise to empha- 
size the difference between these theories and the 
fact of a sinward tendency as a part of human 
depravity. It is as possible to do this as it is easy 
to make a distinction between the fact of the atone- 
ment, variously stated in the New Testament, and 
all human theories about the atonement, founded 
on the fact. 

In thus contrasting fact and theory the view here 
presented is that the proneness to sinning may and 
should be in this life removed from the heart. The 
tendency to disobedience in us as a fact, the source 
from which issue in personal conduct the works of 
the flesh, should be put away; the old man should 
be crucified with the affections and lusts. That 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL loi 

which people feel in them tending to evil, propensi- 
ties which hinder them when they try to be good 
and Christlike, should be abolished. Not only per- 
sonal disobedience, but that state lying back of per- 
sonal conduct, all that gives rise to sinful tempers, 
wrong ambitions, evil thoughts, and the like, are 
taken away from the heart in the blessing of full 
salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit. The 
Scripture promises, commands, and prayers for the 
attainment of this condition are often quoted and 
need not be given at length here. One's belief may 
be founded on a literal construction of i John i. 7: 
''But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, 
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood 
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
''For sin shall not have dominion over you" (Rom. 
6. 14). Though this text may refer directly to 
personal sins or sin personified, yet if a condition 
in one tends to cause these personal sins, that too 
must be destroyed in order to break the dominion 
of personal or habitual sin. The prayer in Eph. 3. 
16-21 includes this great deliverance. Ezek. 36. 26 
has been commonly applied as promising this bless- 
ing: "A new heart also will I give you, and a 
new spirit will I put within you: and I will take 
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will 
give you an heart of flesh." 

At the same time we would not describe this 
blessed experience or epoch by making a sweeping 
statement and saying that all inbred sin according 
to the definition previously given is removed in the 
experience of perfect love. At least we do not 



102 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

know, cannot affirm that it is removed; if it is for 
some people, they should greatly rejoice. Taking 
our definition of hereditary depravity, we could not 
subscribe to the following statement of a writer on 
this subject: *'I speak of perfect love or evangelical 
perfection, in which Adamic depravity is destroyed 
root and branch through the Holy Spirit.'' Most 
writers on this subject, however, teach that some of 
what is included in part (b) of the definition of 
inbred sin is not removed in this life; they often 
call what remains by some other name, as weakness 
or infirmity or ignorance ; and much confusion and 
controversy arise from this procedure. Most Chris- 
tians, who enjoy full salvation, are conscious of 
such weakness and ignorance of God's righteous- 
ness and of ethical relations, which they would not 
have, had they not belonged to a sinful race. 

It is necessary to bear in mind a distinction, im- 
portant to-day, between the heart or conscious life, 
the ego, and the nature or constitution. A part 
of the latter is in the subconscious realm; not 
necessarily the same part at all times, but it is well 
known that there are depths which consciousness 
does not explore. Some may object to this as meta- 
physical and not found, perhaps, in the Bible ; never- 
theless it is a well-ascertained truth of modern 
psychology. Man's mind is by its nature impelled 
to combine into systematic and, if possible, har- 
monious relations what he learns in nature and 
what he learns in the Word of God. Facts concern- 
ing the subconscious or marginal elements of self- 
consciousness are not so abstruse or elusive as much 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 103 

of the speculation about the "inbeing of sin." This 
phrase or theory, too, is not in the Bible ; nor does 
Scripture say explicitly anywhere that at a given 
moment in this life all the damage to the individual 
from sins of the first pair or other ancestors is anni- 
hilated. 

The author's view is that from the heart the 
inherited propensity to disobedience is taken away 
by the power of God when a believer meets the 
conditions. One cannot affirm that it is taken away 
from the nature altogether and from the sub- 
conscious realm. The Bible does not speak of what 
is metaphysical or speculative here, and what is 
hidden in the inner recesses of the being; its method 
and language are popular, not scientific; no micro- 
scopes or telescopes were in use in Bible times. 
For many facts and for acute analysis of mental 
phenomena one must turn to the careful study of 
soul life, psychology. The Bible, being concerned 
with practical salvation for everybody, not with 
teaching a system of anatomy or mental physiology, 
deals with the heart of conscious life. It says, ''Out 
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders," and the 
like, not from the subconscious nature; "And the 
Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the 
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with 
all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou 
mayest live" (Deut. 30. 6). Cleansing and purify- 
ing the heart are common expressions; it is rea- 
sonable to hold that the many passages which speak 
of cleansing us and renewing us refer also to the 
heart or conscious life. 



104 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

All the effects of Adam's sin are not destroyed 
in the experience of perfect love or full salvation. 
Such is the teaching of Rev. Joseph H. Smith, 
Pope's Theology, Bishop R. S. Foster in Christian 
Purity, if we understand him correctly, and of many 
others. We feel that our teaching is thoroughly in 
harmony with true Wesleyan views, and simply 
wish to clarify what has been obscure and puzzling 
to us and to many. The statement made above that 
it is not accurate to describe this change by saying 
that all inbred sin is removed according to our 
definition of inbred sin may be put in concrete form 
thus : A man, a Fiji Islander or an Asiatic, for ex- 
ample, may be entirely sanctified on the most ap- 
proved Wesleyan theory and be slowly dying with 
the leprosy ; he may also have very much of the sin- 
darkened understanding, the mind 'Void of judg- 
ment" about duty and spiritual things, remaining in 
him. But if this leprosy is caused by ancestral 
sin — the question not argued here, only supposed — 
as the "darkened understanding" appears to be 
according to Scripture and in the light of facts of 
heredity, it would not be correct to say that all 
inbred sin or its equivalent statement, all effects of 
the sins of ancestors, have been removed. Yet the 
man could certainly read his "title clear" to heaven. 

It is difficult to dogmatize on these points; the 
subject is too recondite, too abstruse for the dis- 
tinctions frequently made about it. The obscure 
problem of the transmission of sinful and noble 
traits still lacks a clear and definite solution ; satis- 
factory and final explanations must await more in- 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 105 

vestigation and light. It is well admitted that what 
is included under part (b) of inbred sin is not 
removed in full salvation, or a perfect cure for all 
these defects applied to the man at that time. How 
far the healing process extends in individual cases 
cannot be told with minuteness ; more on this point 
will be found in the subsequent chapters. It is 
usually not referred to as inbred sin by many writers, 
but as infirmity, or is altogether overlooked. It 
seems so closely related to its cause, the sins of our 
ancestors, that we wish to refer to it and keep it in 
mind as effect of man's rebellion against his Maker. 

(a) We do not wish to affirm with positiveness 
that one may know with great certitude that the 
propensity to evil is removed from the subconscious 
realm of the being. It is the author's opinion and 
belief that the innate tendency to disobedience may 
be removed from the constitution and from the sub- 
conscious realm in this life; but it cannot be un- 
mistakably proved, and it need not be noisily 
affirmed or ostentatiously paraded. There is not 
sufficient evidence to convince other people who are 
not so affected. 

(b) We do not wish to hold, but rather to deny, 
that inbred sin (b) is entirely removed at the recep- 
tion of full salvation or the fullness of the Holy 
Spirit. Probably this will be admitted without 
proof by those who notice the meaning of the terms 
used and think it over. This part of depravity, 
however, may be diminished at the time of full 
salvation and before and after it. 

(c) We wish to deny that all inbred sin is re- 



io6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

moved from the nature or heart in this Hfe, if the 
definition or account of inbred sin is to be that of 
the seventh Article of ReHgion of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. If one will adopt Daniel Steele's 
statement as the whole of inbred sin, he can say 
it is all removable from the heart in this life before 
death. His statement is that *'The spirit of sin, or 
inbred sin, ... is the state of heart out of which 
acts of sin either actually flow or tend to flow. Un- 
til this state is changed the conquest of love over 
the soul is incomplete."^ But this is not all of 
inbred sin, only a small part of it, according to the 
seventh Article of Religion referred to and accord- 
ing to the Confessions of the Presbyterian and 
Reformed Churches and the Church of England, 
whose ninth Article on this subject John Wesley 
believed as he did the remaining thirty Articles. 
These propositions are based on the following con- 
siderations and reasons. However, let it be under- 
stood here that the above pronouncements are not 
made as infallible and final ; they are tentative, give 
the author's view at present according to light, open 
the way for future revision of the subject, and 
may help some in doubt to clarify their conceptions, 
though their conclusions differ from those here 
given. 

I. It is known to-day that there is a part of 
our mental life which never comes up into clear 
consciousness; it belongs to the subconscious self. 
There are unexplored regions in our nature whose 
contents we know not ; some of the effects of racial 

^ Love Enthroned, p. 37. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 107 

sin may be lurking here. The Bible does not deal 
in these psychological distinctions, but there are 
hints that men do not always know their own hearts, 
to say nothing of the larger life beneath. Of course, 
no new faculty of introspection is added in perfect 
love. The prophet Jeremiah says (17. 9), "The 
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wricked: who can know it?" Paul says in i Cor. 
4. 4, 'Tor I know nothing by myself [''against 
myself," Am. R. V.] ; yet am I not hereby justified: 
but he that judgeth me is the Lord." "For if our 
heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, 
and knoweth all things" (i John 3. 20). He knows 
more about us than our heart or conscious being 
knows. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, 
then have we confidence toward God." If all sin- 
ward tendency is out of our hearts and personal life 
is correct, and we have done all we can to be right 
with God, have appropriated salvation as far as we 
know how, then we have confidence that God will 
not condemn us and will supply whatever may be 
lacking. The Scriptures affirm often that God, and 
in our view God alone, "searcheth all hearts, and 
understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts." 
"I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even 
to give every man according to his ways, and ac- 
cording to the fruit of his doings" (Jer. 17. 10). 
Daniel Steele in relating his experience says: 
"What may be in me, below the gaze of conscious- 
ness, I do not know. I must wait till occasions shall 
put me to the test."^ In his case after one year, as 

^ Love Enthroned, p. 283. 



io8 AN EPOCH; IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

he says, nothing further of sinful tendency was 
detected. ''A year ago I said that I did not know 
what was below the gaze of my consciousness. I 
still say the same, adding the testimony that the 
varied changes and perplexities through which I 
have since passed have failed to reveal any proof 
that Jesus is not king over the domain of my un- 
conscious, as he is over my conscious, self/'^ This 
period was afterward extended to many years. 
This is one fact of importance, a very encouraging 
statement from a trained thinker and careful 
observer of the inner life and a conscientious Chris- 
tian. More such facts would be welcome to the 
student of religious psychology. 

An interesting scientific fact showing the limita- 
tion of our sight and insight is recorded in the 
Epworth Herald of May ii, 1907, from the pen of 
Bishop H. W. Warren, and noticed after this para- 
graph was written: ^'There are many things in 
nature too fine and delicate for the body of man to 
discern and for the mind of man to discover. A 
young lady had her photograph taken and was well 
pleased with it, as she had ample reason to be. 
But soon she carried it back to the photographer, 
complaining that the chemicals had covered the 
head and face with spots. The artist could not ex- 
plain it, but three days later the spots of the small- 
pox broke out all over her face. The film was more 
chemically sensitive than the retina of the human 
eye. So some stars and the lesser moons of Jupiter 
were discovered by photography when the best tele- 

* Love Enthroned, p. 292. 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 109 

scope had not revealed them to the human eye." 
How much more can God see in man than man's 
introspection reveals! 

2. Consciousness is not competent to testify to a 
theory. Consciousness cannot tell us that all inbred 
sin is removed from our nature. Consciousness can 
tell us v^hat we feel and what our inner states or 
acts are, of joy and pain, but not the origin of the 
pain or the condition of a particular organ or 
faculty. Consciousness cannot testify to the law of 
gravitation; it can only testify that the body un- 
supported falls to the earth, or that something one 
holds is heavy. Sense-perception gives us a good 
illustration. A man sees the sun rise; he says, 
''Now I know the earth rotates; there comes the 
sun in the east ; consciousness tells me the earth has 
turned on its axis." It does not; it only tells him 
there is a great light. Sense-perception does not tell 
us how the light came there ; the cow does not know, 
yet she has sense-perception; consciousness does 
not know; study and theorizing are necessary to 
tell us how the light came there. Suppose an affec- 
tion of the eye produces pain; consciousness knows 
it well; consciousness does not give the cause or a 
theory about the pain ; it does not tell us whether it 
proceeds from a diseased retina, or a growth on the 
convex lens, or other difficulty; it tells us only of 
pain, not of its explanation. Consciousness is aware, 
likewise, of an impulse or something in the inner 
man inclining one to wicked words and actions. 
Consciousness tells the entirely sanctified man that 
he no longer feels this power of sin in his heart. 



no, AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

that there is no inclination to that which he believes 
is displeasing to God ; that he is happy, is filled with 
a good spirit, a holy spirit. Consciousness gives 
him no knowledge about the origin of the lawless 
impulse or any theory in theology worked out 
through the centuries; neither does the Bible give 
any such theory. Consciousness tells no man about 
an hypothesis of original sin or its derivation from 
Adam; that is a theory of the intellect. It is easy 
and common to experience a doctrine whether the 
doctrine be true or false. 

Daniel Curry may go further, probably, in his 
assertion than the writer, but his words are of in- 
terest here: *'Now we must inquire. What is the 
condition, as to indwelling sin, into which the soul 
is thus brought [by entire sanctification] ? Is it, or 
is it not, an absolute destruction and extirpation of 
the 'carnal mind'? I am aware that many will be 
ready to answer this question by an unqualified 
yeSy and will claim that no other answer is compati- 
ble with the plain teachings of Methodist theology. 
Let us not be hasty at this point. . . . Let me define 
the terms 'sin' and 'purity,' and I can answer the 
question by either a yes or no, according as more 
or less shall be included by them. It is certain, 
however, that at such a crisis a mighty and thor- 
ough victory is achieved; that indwelling sin, if not 
absolutely cast out, is most effectually bruised under 
the feet of the incoming Conqueror ; and as to all 
this. Scripture and experience coincide : may it not 
be added, beyond this both are silent? If, then, the 
Scriptures do not fully settle this question in ad- 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL in 

vance, may it not be settled as a question of facts? 
. . . There are three sources of self-knowledge that 
may be consulted in this case ; consciousness, expe- 
rience, and divine assurance. . . . Whether, there- 
fore, the carnal mind be subdued into inaction or 
utterly extirpated, consciousness cannot answer, be- 
cause the subject is out of its range. And even 
should some of the motions of sin very softly show 
themselves in their thick disguises, it is not certain 
that the power of introspection would infallibly 
detect them. Nearly the same remarks will apply 
to the reports of experience." He holds to the 
efficacy and importance of the witness of the Holy 
Spirit to our acceptance and sonship, and adds: 
*'But in none of these is there the direct communica- 
tion of any direct intellectual proposition to the 
understanding, as there must be in order that the 
fact of personal sinlessness shall be assured. . . . 
We must, therefore, leave the question of the abso- 
lute extirpation of the 'carnal mind,' as an accom- 
plished fact in any given case, an open one, believing 
that no real good would be effected by its solu- 
tion. But it is assuredly our privilege to know that 
the most complete victory may be achieved and 
maintained ; and by divinely begotten hope its glori- 
ous consummation is assured to the faithful."^ The 
reader may not wish to subscribe fully to all the 
propositions of Dr. Curry, some of which are abbre- 
viated, but the quotation shows the limitations of 
consciousness on this subject; psychology has made 
considerable advance since he wrote. It may be 

^ Quoted in Foster, Christian Purity, pp. 97-100. 



112 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

urged as an objection to the foregoing that the Holy 
Spirit could witness to the fact that racial sin is all 
eradicated from the subconscious realm. He could 
but does not; no scripture can be quoted against 
this statement with correct exegesis. The Holy 
Spirit does not witness to abstract propositions or 
speculative hypotheses of the reason or to historical 
theory. The Holy Spirit does not even furnish a 
ready-made and fully completed standard of right- 
eousness to each person or age; but he diffuses 
enough light to convince men of intentional sins. 

3. A third reason for the propositions advanced 
is the following: It is commonly admitted that we 
cannot have Adamic perfection in this life ; we may 
have Christian perfection, a name for the state of 
grace called entire sanctification. Why may one not 
have Adamic perfection if inbred sin, which is 
depravation, disorganization, ruin, and weakness, is 
utterly eradicated from the whole being? All that 
hinders us from having Adamic perfection, as far 
as we understand the subject, is sin in our personal 
lives and in the race and the effects or works of sin. 
Therefore we conclude that all the damage sin has 
wrought in the race is not removed from body and 
soul in entire sanctification. 

4. Inquiry into the condition of the man who 
without doubt has been entirely sanctified seems to 
confirm the above idea. It is a sad fact that such 
have been known to fall from this state of grace. 
They often fall at that point where they were in 
the habit of sinning before and under the tempta- 
tion to which they formerly yielded. What should 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 113 

one expect, then, on the hypothesis that part (a) 
of inbred sin has been eradicated from the whole 
constitution and known to be out; and that very 
few effects of racial sin (part b), if any worth 
noticing, remain in him? If God ever took all 
inbred sin out of the man he would not put it back — 
God is not the author of sin; the man could not 
put it back — that is the work of many generations. 
The entirely sanctified man, on this theory, who 
falls into actual sin, ought to be in the condition 
of xALdam after his first sin; he ought to have only 
the force of this one personal sin, or day of sinning, 
to drag him down ; he would be shy, awkward, and 
unskillful in sinning. The man fallen from holiness 
can only get so much downward momentum as he 
can acquire after his fall, not one hundred and 
eighty generations of it. It would be about one 
hundred and eighty generations back to Adam, 
counting three generations to a century, if he was 
created nearly six thousand years ago, and, accord- 
ing to one writer, in October about 5 130 o'clock 
in the afternoon. It is a matter of comimon 
observation and regret that such good people as 
fall go into sin like old hands ; the evil propensity 
seems to have grown very powerful, nearly as 
powerful as ever, within a week or a very short 
time. This sad fact throws light upon his previous 
condition under holiness. A possible objection to 
this idea should be noticed here. It may be said 
that all the inbred sin was removed from the nature, 
but the effects of the intentional and inadvertent 
sins of the man before he was entirely sanctified 



114 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

or regenerated remain, and these cause his quick 
descent. In such a case he would not be innocent 
Hke Adam or Christ, or possess normal spiritual 
strength. To this it may be replied: If inbred sin 
is utterly exterminated from the nature, but one's 
acquired sinful states remain, it does not help him 
much to have the former exterminated. Such a 
person would have a very hard fight to maintain 
his standing and to progress in righteousness. This 
position, as far as we are aware, has not been 
advocated by many. The view of inbred sin here 
opposed makes it so subtle, elusive, and metaphys- 
ical that one can scarcely discuss the subject with 
any assurance of getting at the truth. It should 
be further noticed that one who has fallen may be 
fully reclaimed again according to the theory ; there 
is nowhere, as far as we have been able to discover 
in the literature of the subject, any different process 
or method for getting sanctified entirely a second 
time. Hence the theory would affirm that all of the 
person's inbred sin is removed twice! 

5. The objection now to be stated is in the 
writer's judgment entitled to much weight. The 
eager, thoroughgoing, ardent attempts of many peo- 
ple to explain this great divine life in the soul of 
man without making it clear; the many disagree- 
ments and hot disputes among very godly people 
about the nature of full salvation, combine to fur- 
nish strong proof that all effects of the first and 
subsequent sins of the race are not removed. Nev- 
ertheless they do not prove that the propensity to 
lawlessness is not eradicated from the heart. If 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 115 

all the consequences of sin were out of the heart 
and nature, if the mind were clarified from all sin- 
blinding effects so as to know God, as one who 
never sins nor is touched with racial sins knows 
him, men would see eye to eye on these matters 
concerning what a holy life is and requires; they 
would have right ideas of God, his demands on 
men, and his helpfulness. They would agree about 
the work of regeneration and sanctification, have 
fewer differences in the explanation of the Scrip- 
ture, and be one in Christ, as in the seventeenth 
chapter of John's Gospel he prayed that they 
might be. Men's vision of practical moral truth 
would be clear like the intuitions in mathematics; 
it was so with the Christ; their sensitiveness to 
God and righteousness, their aversion to sin, un- 
holiness, and injustice, would be far greater than 
it is, more like that of the Christ. Our very 
differences and disputes spoil the theory that all 
effects of sin of every kind are eradicated from the 
heart and nature with its evil dregs or remains. 
There is a darkening of the mind due to sin, a 
blinding of the spiritual sight, and a deadening of 
the conscience. Much of this and other baleful 
effects of sin still remain in a large number of the 
best of men known to us through the study of 
biography. While some may contend that all inbred 
sin is removed, none contend that all inbred foolish- 
ness is removed. Divisions in the ranks, heresy 
among holiness people, and ignorance of divine 
things are against too broad and sweeping a state- 
ment about the elimination of all sin's effects from 



ii6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the whole being. Wesley's experience with schis- 
matics about 1760-62 is strong evidence on this 
point. 

Probably the same truth to which expression is 
given in these points, especially in No. 3, is stated 
by some excellent advocates of this subject in 
other words. Some try to make a discrimination 
between propensity to sin which is removed and 
a susceptibility to sin, or a remaining weakness, 
which, they say, is not removed. The same idea 
might be expressed thus: Some of the inbred sin 
left in the subconscious realm or in the constitution 
may afterward show itself in great susceptibility 
to sin, surprising a man who thought it was all 
gone. The susceptibility may be very great, yet, as 
some use the word, the propensity is all gone. 
This is a very fine distinction, yet is possible to 
thought. The susceptibility is not all gone even 
from the conscious life. The susceptibility on the 
view advocated in this treatise is a remainder of 
the sins of ancestors. The fully saved man feels 
weakness and knows there are danger points; he 
is more liable to fall into that particular sin or 
gratification, which he previously indulged, than 
into some new form of sin. Viewed in this light, 
susceptibility is as certainly "remains" of the sins 
of ancestors as propensity, but it is not so large a 
degree of it; the difference is one of degree or 
intensity. 

These succeeding points are added to show the 
difficulty of drawing the line between proneness to 
sin and weakness from previous yielding; and to 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 117 

show the difficuUy of correct introspection and 
proper appreciation of good and bad traits. How 
hard it is to distinguish between self-will or culpa- 
ble obstinacy and a proper amount of standing up 
for w^hat is right ! Who can do this, especially when 
standing up for what is right means dividing the 
church, or leaving the church, as Saul of Tarsus 
left the Jewish church? or acting contrary to its 
orders, as John Wesley did in the Church of Eng- 
land ? Indeed, Wesley says : "We cannot infallibly 
know one that is thus saved (no, nor even one that 
is justified), unless it should please God to endow 
us with the miraculous discernment of spirits. . . . 
Can we pronounce in all cases how far infirmity 
reaches? what may and what may not be resolved 
into it? what may in all circumstances and what 
may not consist with perfect love? Can we pre- 
cisely determine how it will influence the look, the 
gesture, the tone of the voice? If we can, doubt- 
less we are the men, and wisdom shall die with 
, us!''^ Yet we know enough and have evidence 
enough to satisfy reasonable people that the predis- 
position often occasioning sinful tempers, hatred, 
pride, and the like is out of the hearts of many 
credible witnesses to the life of love and holiness. 
They may also know that it is out of their own 
hearts. We would in no wise diminish the prospect 
of getting free from sin in this life; we would do 
everything to advocate and to promote such free- 
dom ; we feel sure that so true and useful an experi- 
ence as that of the Spirit-filled life should win the 

* Plain Account, pp. 19, 25. 



ii8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

world, if it can be freed from objectionable speech 
and practices and from confusing and misleading 
terminology and metaphysics and be exhibited in a 
sufficient number of self-sacrificing lives. These 
statements are not written to discourage anyone in 
his Christian experience, but to encourage fearless- 
ness, honesty, and modesty in all statements about 
the inner life. Further points about what is re- 
movable are found in the paragraphs on ignorance 
and temperament in the fourth chapter ; on infirmi- 
ties in the fifth chapter; something on what is not 
removed in the fourth chapter, under *'How much 
is left?" or the remaining effects of sin. 

To avoid misunderstanding and misrepresenta- 
tion, we repeat that the innate tendency to lawless- 
ness, that source within from which arise sinful 
tempers, pride, envy, anger, self-will, vain ambitions, 
vaunting of self, touchiness and jealousy and all 
the works of the flesh, may and should be thorough- 
ly eradicated from the heart in this life without 
waiting till a few moments before death. The 
remainder of the inclination to evil as felt in the 
conscious life is destroyed in the blessing of full 
salvation. All the outward manifestations, the 
wrong feelings and actions usually attributed to 
remaining depravity, must cease in the life of the 
true Christian; this all must admit however they 
may differ about the hidden source within the soul. 
The pride and sinful tempers mentioned above are 
personal sins, manifestations of a wrong bent lying 
back in the nature. The ebullitions of covetousness 
and impurity should cease. No Christian doubts 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL iig 

that ; the Saviour offers the promise and the power 
to cause them to cease out of the life. When they 
have vanished for a long time, it seems proper to 
conclude that the fountain within is dried up. Some 
have spoken of the destruction of inbred sin as if 
it were a physical thing like the excision of a tumor. 
This view is rejected truly by many. What, then, 
is "removed'' or "destroyed" ? Disorder is removed, 
lack of harmony; the innate capacity for self-will 
is abolished or diminished ; the rebellion of the lower 
powers against the higher is overthrown; the ex- 
cess of perverted natural appetites, frequently 
called "lusts" in the Scriptures, is reduced; the 
abnormal condition is taken away or brought more 
nearly to the normal state; deficient moral powers 
are strengthened and the will is empowered to con- 
trol all desires and appetites. Alienation or estrange- 
ment from God is out of the soul, and inclina- 
tion to please God possesses the soul. It is the 
author's belief and his purpose to show that he 
holds to the removal or overthrow of the sinward 
tendency as thoroughly as is commonly taught by 
Wesleyan writers on this subject; probably he 
holds to the removal of more of the efifects of 
the sins of ancestors and of infirmities and igno- 
rance than many, as will be shown, if possible, 
before the end of the fifth chapter. Neverthe- 
less, it does not seem wise to call this great, 
fundamental, and useful destruction of evil the 
removal of all inbred sin, using the term as defined 
in this chapter or in the seventh Article of Religion, 
or as equivalent to all the efifects of sin in the race. 



120 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

If part (a) of inbred sin is considered all of it, 
then one may truly say it is all removed from the 
heart and possibly from the constitution or being. 
Then one must give an account of the other eitects 
of ancestral sin which remain. 

The removal of the innate tendency to disobedi- 
ence is possible for all, obligatory upon all disci- 
ples who have instruction and opportunity to seek 
it, regardless of temperament, natural disposition, 
education, or social position. Every Christian be- 
liever who has been in the way for a time should 
make this attainment; none should be contented or 
stationary without it; it is not too high for all, 
even humble and plain people. Much more of in- 
bred and acquired tendencies to irritability, harsh 
speech, gossip, unkind and useless criticism, and 
selfishness in little things should be removed from 
church members than is ordinarily put away. Great 
apathy prevails in the church toward these short- 
comings and failures. A mighty awakening to the 
deadness, loss of power, and often to the meanness 
and downright wickedness hidden under a formal 
profession, is greatly needed. That a believer is 
popularly supposed to be in the same state regard- 
ing purity and power over his sinful proclivities and 
faults and little weaknesses as he was years before 
is appalling. That his family expect the continu- 
ance of these evil or disagreeable qualities and have 
settled down to the idea that such a condition is 
included in being a Christian; that a man's busi- 
ness associates joke about his faults, his stinginess 
or crankiness as a permanent state, while he makes 



INBRED SIN: NATURE AND REMOVAL 121 

no visible attempt at improvement or progress, is 
disgraceful to any Christian. The Lord is not try- 
ing to raise up such a people. He has an entirely 
different pattern; the word to Moses was, ''See 
that thou make all things according to the pattern 
showed to thee in the mount." The Christian is to 
be wholly a new creature, and Christ is the pattern. 
Every quality must be transformed like unto him; 
and this transformation must never suffer eclipse, 
but be visible every year before as well as after 
entire sanctification. Christ is now agonizing and 
breaking his heart for *'a glorious church, not hav- 
ing spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it 
should be holy and without blemish.'' 



CHAPTER IV 

Inbred Sin Enlarged by Practice 

acquired sin or depravity, or personal sinful 

STATES 

There is a very important difference to be noted 
between inbred sin, as an inheritance at birth, and 
inbred sin enlarged and intensified by continued 
yielding to it, both before and after the years of 
accountability. Every adult and young person of 
responsible age has yielded to sinful suggestions and 
desires again and again, and greatly increased his 
original propensity to evil. This may appropriately 
be called personal or acquired depravity or sinful- 
ness, or sin (S^) ; it is personal degeneration and 
alienation; it presupposes a longer or shorter, 
grosser or more refined, career in voluntary sin. 
This is a wicked man's moral character in the sec- 
ondary sense. This would include evil habits, as the 
drink habit, natural appetites and passions reduced 
in quantity or pampered to abnormal strength, and 
the like; it might include his maimed or injured 
body or dwarfed mind brought to this condition 
through debauchery, fighting, and various immorali- 
ties. These are the marks of the devil instead of 
Christ. 

It has been affirmed in these pages that inbred 
sin at birth does not bring guilt. There is no guilt- 
less sin in the Bible, say some. If this be true, the 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 123 

reason may be here made apparent. The Bible does 
not present — not frequently, if at all — so meta- 
physical and speculative an entity as effects of sin 
inherited from ancestors with no personal addition 
to them by the heir of them. It does not go into 
heredity in this way. No more does the Bible treat 
of the pure reason or the practical understanding, or 
of the conversion and quantification of terms or of 
the moods of the syllogism according to the rules of 
formal logic. All acquired sinfulness certainly is 
guilty; therefore the references to the *'old man," 
"'former conversation/' and the like would contain 
the idea of guilt, and they can at the same time 
include with the personal increment the innate bias 
to self-assertion. 

It is possible that both the entailed and acquired 
effects of sin or depravity are treated together in 
the Bible, as in our statement about sin (S^), and 
the former are not presented separately, or very 
rarely so presented. The Scriptures, being practi- 
cal, do not draw fine lines here for the sacred 
metaphysician. In the Jewish ceremonial law there 
was no prescribed offering or method of making 
atonement for inbred sin considered separately and 
alone. Accordingly, all references to sin in the 
Bible, or most of them, are to sin which is guilty. 
Paul did not write any epistles, that have come 
down to us, to children or about them, who were 
small enough to have no sin except inherited sin 
or depravity. Those to whom he wrote had previ- 
ously set up in the business of sinning on their own 
account. He wrote to adults on practical Christian 



124 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

living, not much on heredity or the origin of sin. 
Other New Testament writers have still less on the 
first and second Adam. He discusses besides the 
doctrines of salvation the difficulties, problems, and 
possible attainments of grown-up Christians. 

We would also affirm here that much of the in- 
terior sinward tendency in the youth and in the 
adult, the ugly and unbridled anger and hatred, the 
covetousness and love of the world, is not merely the 
derangement inherited at birth, but is due to the 
environment, to social interaction, and to early im- 
pressions and surroundings. This nucleus, or in- 
clination to selfishness, entailed upon us grows more 
rapidly with parents and among associates of child- 
hood who are profane, vile, and thievish than among 
those who are pure, clean, quiet, and orderly, as 
in a Christian home, school, or community. People 
should make the most of this side in training, what- 
ever the entailed state may be ; this part parents or 
guardians can often control; the inherited state and 
the earliest surroundings we can never choose for 
ourselves. It will not do for the church or modern 
society to excuse itself by saying that the young 
have inherited bad traits and accordingly become 
easily wicked. If society will clean itself up and 
the surroundings of children and youth, and purify 
the moral atmosphere now vibrating with profanity 
and lying and perfumed with intoxicating drink, 
and erase or paint black many of the pictures now 
spread out for the pubHc gaze for the sake of ad- 
vertising, and much from the public prints and 
books, the manifestations and the development of 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 125 

inbred sin in the coming generation will be mucH 
diminished. It is imperative to see that the bacilli 
of entailed sinwardness do not find a congenial soil 
in which to develop and multiply. . 

This acquired sinful character, or the qualities, 
tastes, and characteristics of the sinner, along with 
the noble and pure qualities and the good character, 
if such there be, acquired in his past life, are the 
matters of great concern to the Christian worker or 
soul-winner. To make a wise approach with the 
gospel he must understand the man sought. He has 
very little to do here with the person's inbred sin, 
considered by itself, as it was first inherited; the 
same is true if he would lead the Christian disciple 
on to higher attainments. The worker is chiefly 
concerned with the particular ways and manifesta- 
tions of the sinward tendency not so much in its 
original state at birth as in its developed condition 
at the time in the person with whom he is dealing. 
Careful study for the purpose, with the consensus 
of leading commentators, like Meyer, Alexander 
Maclaren, and others, convinces the writer that 
the Pauline phrases "old man," "body of sin," 
"mind of the flesh," "sin that dwelleth in me," 
refer not only to the inherited depravity but to 
acquired depravity. Wesley in his long discussion 
with Taylor admits the same. Paul wishes his 
readers to "put off the old man," that is, their pre- 
Christian or heathen life, old habits, sinful tempers 
and indulgences, along with their hereditary de- 
pravity. We believe that indwelling sin, as in the 
seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, re- 



126 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

fers to about the same condition as innate and 
acquired tendency to lawlessness, or bent to sin- 
ning, and is a convenient and appropriate name 
for it. It is making too fine distinctions on the 
apostle's words and ideas, reading modern modes 
of thought and phraseology back into the ancient 
writings, to say that the phrase "indwelling sin" 
might not include some of what in this treatise 
is subsumed under inbred sin (b) ; it does not in- 
clude all of part (b) of inbred sin. Thus under- 
stood indwelling sin may be rooted out of the char- 
acter in this life and its power over a man defeated 
by the Spirit of God. The apostle does not distin- 
guish inborn depravity separately as a matter of 
speculative theology by the above terms; he is too 
practical for that, and engaged on no metaphysical 
or theological treatise at the time he was writing to 
his dearly beloved and hard-won Gentile converts. 
Pure, simple, and unadulterated ancestral sin does 
not exist in any adult; it is always aggravated or 
modified by personal conduct. 

The question will surely be asked, and, if possible, 
must be answered. How much of this acquired 
depravity may be removed in this life? It may be 
possible — though it is not here affirmed — that this 
is really of more practical importance to the indi- 
vidual in his everyday life than the removal of the 
amount of sinward tendency entailed upon him at 
birth, or at least equally important. For, if the 
latter could be removed wholly and these acquired 
tendencies left, the young Christian would have a 
very severe and unequal battle; it would be ex- 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 127 

tremely difficult and probably impossible — certainly 
impossible in his own strength — to make progress 
in the Christian life. How much, then, is removable 
at regeneration or conversion? Some of the ten- 
dency to lawlessness both inherited and acquired; 
much of the manifold development of depravity 
acquired as well as inherited. And before the end 
of the ordinary lifetime all of the acquired and 
innate tendency to disobedience, or bent to sinning, 
may be and should be driven from the heart ; and 
more of inbred sin in the wide sense and of the 
acquired sinful states and habits. In general our 
answer is that enough of the old life and ways is 
destroyed at conversion to give the young Christian 
for the most part victory over voluntary sin and 
acquired sinful tendencies and habits, though he 
may be compelled to fight hard to maintain it. He 
doubtless will be forced to make his firmest and 
strongest stand against all interior evil. There are 
promises in the Scripture that imply or openly 
assert that sin shall not have dominion over the 
Christian; and God is faithful who promised; ex- 
perience confirms this assertion. This point is more 
fully treated in the sixth chapter. Old habits may 
be overthrown here at the Redeemer's feet with the 
soul's entire surrender and reception of the Saviour. 
The "old man" may be and should now be nailed 
to the cross; his death is approaching but he is 
not usually thrust through with the spear at this 
time. Further on in the Christian race a more 
complete victory may be realized. Exceptions are 
not uncommon ; in order not to discourage any who 



128 AN EPOCH, IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

may not have so high and dear an experience, it 
should be added that some do not have so great 
deHverance and victory as others. And, further- 
more, if a man has had his arm cut off in a drunken 
spree, neither regeneration nor full salvation will 
put it back. The same will apply to certain mental 
losses. ^The bird with the broken pinion never 
flew so high again." The man converted in old 
age will not have in this life the growth and spiritual 
knowledge and the usefulness which he would have 
had, had he become a disciple of Jesus when young 
and remained active in his service. Other writers 
teach the same. Dr. Carradine says: ^*In regen- 
eration the soul is born again, made new, entered 
upon a spiritual life. That personal depravity 
which arises from one's own actual sin is corrected 
by regeneration; but inherited depravity remains 
untouched. It is idle to say that this was removed 
in regeneration. Sound reasoning is against it and 
a universal Christian experience."^ With the first 
part of the quotation we agree in the main, although 
not altogether in principle with any method of try- 
ing to draw factitious lines in dissecting the work 
of the Holy Spirit; to say that inherited depravity 
is left untouched is too strong and is evidently an 
error. The distinction seems to be arbitrary and 
artificial. The following and similar points will 
show that if personal depravity is removed, some 
of the inherited depravity must go with it. Facts 
on this point are preferable to theories. 

If a man has inherited a tendency to appetite for 

1 Quoted by A. M. Hills, Holiness and Power, p. 98. 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 129 

liquor and has indulged this for years and greatly 
strengthened it, he has now one appetite for drink, 
not two appetites, with these two elements in it not 
separable in fact, only in our thought, or analysis. 
There is the inherited tendency and the acquired 
tendency to drink ; it is safe to hold that the latter 
is very much the larger element. Now, if God in 
answer to prayer takes away the appetite of such a 
man, as remarked by Dr. Mudge, he takes it all, 
both the inherited and the acquired appetite. It is 
one victory over one habit. Such victory over the 
appetite for drink or over some other evil proclivity 
is often gained by the help of God at the beginning 
of the Christian life. Some weakness here or sus- 
ceptibility may remain, and some physical diseases. 
If any wish to deny this, the question arises, What 
object can God have, when a man prays very 
earnestly to be saved from drink, in answering his 
prayer to the extent of removing the acquired appe- 
tite and leaving an inherited appetite or propensity 
to drink which may soon drag him down again? 
God, being omniscient, is supposed to be able to 
distinguish between the strength of the acquired and 
inherited elements, which, as we believe, no man 
can do. The experience of some saved drunkards, 
who have been kept saved, proves that all of the 
appetite was removed at a certain time and did 
not return. This is not the same as saying that 
all the proneness to disobedience is removed at con- 
version. 

Another example not referring to an artificial 
appetite will suffice. There may be and is at times 



130 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

an undue sensitiveness or excitement or abnormal 
state of the sexual and other organs inherited from 
the excesses of ancestors. Constantly yielding to 
this, that is, an immoral life, has greatly aggravated 
and enlarged this passion. When God hears the 
prayer of the sincere penitent seeking pardon and 
help at this point, he does not remove this appetite 
or instinct altogether; it is a part of normal man. 
But he removes or reduces the excessive abnormal 
appetite, and v^ith the person's cooperation purifies 
the thoughts and imaginations of the heart, and 
brings this function more nearly or quite to its 
normal condition — to a state of innocency, if pos- 
sible. In some other a deficient appetite or quality 
may be increased, likewise, toward its normal 
strength. In this modification or reduction the 
inherited excess, if there be any, and the acquired 
excess or abnormality are both removed together. 
It seems reasonable to say that one cannot take away 
or greatly reduce the acquired tendency to lawless- 
ness without limiting somewhat the inherited ten- 
dency to lawlessness of which the acquired is the 
enlargement. To affirm the opposite savors of 
artificiality and unreality, of which there is none 
in God's dealings with man. The whole-hearted 
act of the will in trusting Christ, of the soul in 
committing itself to Christ, affects the nature of the 
will, the innate disposition, curbing the headstrong 
tendency. This is done, as experience shows, with- 
out fully destroying that tendency in all directions ; 
and an innate or an artificially indulged inclination 
to gratify certain wrong appetites or to seek pleas- 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 131 

ure in certain forbidden directions may be fully 
destroyed. 

Acquired depravity or sinfulness and acquired 
reformation or renovation may exist in one not 
connected with a Christian church. A person in- 
herits a damaged condition of body and mind. He 
may add to this and to the inherited tendency to 
sin. Or he may diminish by careful living, by 
observing the laws of health and moral laws, to 
some extent, inbred sin in the wide sense, part (b) ; 
he may at certain points restore some of the ruin. 
He may improve in some respects and deteriorate in 
others. Even a ''good moral life" is better for this 
life than a career in crime, vice, or sensuality. The 
man who never repents and openly acknowledges 
Christ as his Saviour may repair some of the in- 
herited impairment of mind and body ; the Christian 
atmosphere and help about him will aid in this 
work if he makes use of them. But the sinward 
tendency, the rebellious depravity, he increases, con- 
firms, and establishes by his neglect or stubbornness 
and refusal to seek pardon, supposing he has the 
light of Christianity. This makes his moral charac- 
ter in the secondary sense more or less good or bad 
outwardly; the heart or attitude toward God is 
bad; it is that of indifference or opposition. 

Every argument exists to induce the young and 
all to obey law, physical and spiritual, and to reduce 
the ruin or vitiated state within which sin has 
wrought. Some of this may be done by right living 
before the point where one yields wholly and openly 
to God and seeks pardon or justification. This will 



132 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

apply well to children brought up in a Christian 
home where there are no ugly words or ebullitions 
of anger and other evil passions ; where they grow 
into the habit of restraining evil propensities before 
as well as after they know there is such a thing 
as sin. In the home where swearing, brawling, 
drunkenness, and lawlessness are incessant, the 
inherited sinward tendency in the young child is 
much increased in early life before he knows enough 
to oppose it; before he knows enough of conse- 
quences of action and courses of conduct to choose 
the good and refuse the evil with discretion and 
vigor. 

A word may be in order to the timid ones who 
do not feel like admitting that the innate tendency 
to disobedience may be put out of the heart in this 
life. They should take notice that many Christian 
workers, who probably may not make much of the 
view of the Christian life set forth in these pages, 
are saying to-day. Make the environment right; it 
will be a stronger factor in the life of the child 
than inherited depravity. Some say. Make little 
account of race sin in dealing with the child, as it 
is so vague and intangible. Go ahead and give the 
best training, example, and surroundings; you can 
win often, even with street boys. This is a view 
rather from the side of naturalism than from reve- 
lation and the teaching of the church. 

The following is interesting, though it does not 
refer to the supernatural in character-building ; its 
author is a believer in the supernatural. Professor 
George T. Ladd says: "Few impressions are more 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 133 

firmly fixed than this, that different individuals (at 
least among all the more highly civilized peoples) 
possess, each one, a characteristic 'natural disposi- 
tion/ Such disposition constitutes a predominating 
tendency to feel, think, and act in certain forms 
rather than others among the many that are con- 
ceivable. The conviction that the disposition of the 
individual is innate and inherited, rather than the 
result of training or environment, is doubtless due 
to the fact that it appears with considerable strength 
in childhood, and generally maintains itself under 
great alterations of circumstances, and against 
eft'ort, to the close of the individual's life. The so- 
called 'disposition' can, indeed, be greatly modified, 
and even seem wholly changed; but such modifica- 
tion is invariably made at the expense of greater 
energy than is required to form and break those 
habits which are acquired in different individuals 
after birth. Moreover, the modification is often one 
of expression and power of control rather than of 
disposition."^ The Christian may have the help of 
the Holy Spirit, which greatly reduces the expendi- 
ture of energy necessary to modify original traits; 
but certain fundamental traits and racial charac- 
teristics, not necessarily caused by sins of the past, 
may never be changed; they constitute that par- 
ticular personality. 

SOME INBRED SIN REMOVABLE AT REGENERATION 

Some inbred sin may be removed at the beginning 
of regeneration, or, in other words, at the time of 

^ Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 574. 



134 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

justification. No one can certainly affirm that it is 
not. God is able to do such a work, and often does 
more than our poor language requests him to do 
or than the person understands at the time. This 
fact would prevent us from using the removal of 
all inbred sin as the point or characteristic differen- 
tiating entire sanctification from regeneration. One 
might say that the removal of the remainder of the 
innate sinward tendency is such a differentiating 
characteristic. It is dangerous to rest so good a 
doctrine on one prop; some one some time might 
knock the prop from under it. The doctrine or 
experience really rests on a broader and securer 
foundation. 

The reasonableness of the statement that some 
inbred sin may be removed at the new birth appears 
from facts like the following. It is the common 
experience of Christians that much of pride, covet- 
ousness, love of the world, ill temper, and other evil 
qualities disappear from the heart and life at regen- 
eration. Along with these qualities some of the 
innate tendency to disobedience and more of inbred 
sin (b) is likely to disappear also; from lack of 
further indulgence it can hardly escape modification 
and diminution. It is the "some" that remains that 
makes trouble for us. A further study of Christian 
biography would doubtless reveal some clearer ex- 
amples and more cases similar to the following given 
by Bishop H. W. Warren : A man with an appetite 
for liquor uncontrollable at times had broken his 
leg and was confined to the house where he could 
get no liquor. The clamor of the old thirst seemed 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 135 

irresistible and he cried out for some one to bring 
him the drink, but no one would. Then he called 
upon God in agony to take away the appetite, prom- 
ising to touch liquor no more. His prayer was 
answered and the appetite taken away so fully that 
it never returned. He recovered and about six 
months afterward discovered that he had not been 
entirely converted, as his temper was not always 
under control. He sought and found salvation, and 
lived twelve years a happy man without using 
liquor. If a tendency to crave liquor in this man 
had been inherited, a part of his inbred sin or de- 
pravity was clearly removed even before what is 
commonly called regeneration. It is credible that 
more facts of this sort will be found, if Christian 
workers look for them. Likewise it is possible and 
natural that certain psychical evil qualities transmit- 
ted from ancestors would be overthrown or de- 
stroyed, when one is made a ''new creature'' in 
Christ Jesus. ''The expulsive power of a new affec- 
tion," inflamed with the Holy Spirit as he is in the 
justified and adopted children of God, is able at 
once to banish the old Adam at many points. 

It is not desirable to have the phraseology used 
here or any form of words trouble any fully saved 
soul. Some uninstructed people may not be able to 
speak of their experience unless they say, The Lord 
removed all inbred sin and sanctified my soul at 
such a time. No correction of any such statements 
in prayer meeting should be made. The experience 
which God gives is all right ; the mode of describing 
it may be incorrect or infelicitous owing to pre- 



136 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

vious incompetent instruction. People who have 
only heard one speaker or one class of speakers on 
the subject and do not read, possibly cannot read, 
are obliged to use his terminology. Those who 
wish to instruct others should employ discriminating 
terms and allow a variety of them. 

THE TRANSMISSION OF GOOD TRAITS 

Heredity presents a great scientific problem. The 
burning point of discussion has been this: Are 
acquired characteristics transmitted or only congen- 
ital characteristics? Herbert Spencer says the 
former are transmitted ; other eminent men deny it. 
The biologists are likely to have more light in this 
department than the theologians, as the physicians 
have more light on physical ailments and their 
remedies than the clergymen. The question is 
raised often in works on this subject, whether a 
sanctified state in both parents can be transmitted 
to children. The answer is. No ; not as an acquisi- 
tion any more than the knowledge of a foreign 
language. There are undoubtedly more of the 
transmissible effects of sin in general — not the bent 
to sinning, the single item — deep-seated in the con- 
stitution, than holiness, which is a late acquisition. 
A state of perfect love is no more transmissible than 
skill in piano-playing. But some musical ability or 
readiness to learn may be transmitted, and most as- 
suredly good qualities of character from godly 
parents tend to produce in the offspring a predis- 
position to the same qualities, especially if they have 
been living Christlike lives some years before the 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 137 

children were born and at the time of their birth. 
Special cases of accident, deformity, or atavism are 
not included here. A parent who had lost sight a 
year or two before a child was born would not neces- 
sarily cause the child to be blind; the child con- 
forms in general to the type of the race, if no 
occurrence or variation prevents. So people with 
propensity to disobedience removed, susceptibility 
being left, may have children, but the children con- 
form to the type of the race; and the type within 
the memory of man appears to be born in a condi- 
tion tending to lawlessness. Knowledge of algebra 
or calculus may not be transmitted, but mathematical 
ability may be. A state of perfect love may not 
be transmitted, but a tendency to fear God, be 
orderly, conscientious, and kind, may be inherited. 
That more and more of noble qualities and intel- 
lectual power may be transmitted to posterity is 
the hope of the race, and should be the aim 
in all homes and in those who expect to have 
homes. There is no question to-day about the trans- 
mission of evil traits and of criminal and vagrant 
proclivities. Would a benevolent Creator allow that 
and forbid the transmission of good traits? There 
is abundant evidence to show how high moral and 
intellectual living helps posterity. The Edwards 
family has given the world many eminent citizens, 
physicians, ministers, teachers, lawyers, and others ; 
as the Jukes family inflicted upon the world crimi- 
nals and paupers. It is appalling to think of the 
inheritance of the children of hard drinkers, opium 
smokers, and the syphilitic. The old commandment 



138 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

said, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of 
them that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thou- 
sands of them that love me, and keep my command- 
ments/' Think of the promises in the Old Testa- 
ment to the seed of righteous people provided the 
seed would continue to be righteous. God knew the 
working of his own laws and was trying to get 
sin-benighted man to know and to keep them, even 
if he had to promise sugarplums of earthly pros- 
perity to get a start. 

Let the nation know, yea, the world, that he 
who fears God in early life and works righteous- 
ness; who lives on a high spiritual plane, keeps 
his body and thoughts clean, and is filled with the 
Spirit, will hand down to his descendants untold 
blessings and advantages some of which probably 
are otherwise forever unattainable by them. Here 
is an inconceivably weighty motive to godliness, 
especially in youth. The amount of internal dis- 
order or racial impairment may thus be greatly 
diminished. Herein is hope. If people will live 
holy lives, which means ultimately healthy and nor- 
mal lives spiritually and physically, there will be 
generations with less inbred sin in them; and in 
time, under the providence of God, there may be 
some generations which have none at all and no 
personal sins. Then the kingdom of God will be 
fully come. Then Christ will have accomplished 
the purpose of his manifestation, ''that he might 
destroy the works of the devil." He will then see 
of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 139 

KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE 

It has been often truly affirmed that Christian 
perfection does not mean perfection in knowledge; 
notwithstanding this truth one cannot allow in a 
man fully saved an unlimited amount of ignorance 
of God and of right relations to one's neighbor in 
accordance with the demands of the moral law. 
Perfect love or loyalty may exist without perfect 
knowledge of the person loved, but not without 
some knowledge of the person loved. Full salva- 
tion presupposes a knowledge of the one true God, 
and a high degree of experimental knowledge of the 
Christ and of the Holy Spirit, though the fully 
saved Christian may not know how to read and may 
be ignorant of modern science. The Holy Spirit 
brings to remembrance now the words of Christ, 
as he did for the apostles, and illumines the Scrip- 
tures. It is more than probable that a very much 
larger degree of knowledge is necessary than is 
often represented. In the blessing of full salvation 
much of the mental blindness caused by the sinful 
departure of man from God and the consequent 
withdrawal of God's Spirit is taken away; the be- 
liever is "transformed by the renewing of his 
mind.'' The perfect have their "senses exercised" 
by practice "to discern both good and evil." This 
IS another point where the damage or ruin of racial 
sin is repaired. 

TEMPERAMENT 

This section about the removal of inbred sin 
cannot be completed without referring to a fact of 



140 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

vital importance. Certain deep and radical changes 
in one's constitution are made by the continual 
working of the grace of God, after a man submits 
to God in repentance and faith. It is not necessary 
to allot this work some before and some after an 
experience called in the sixth chapter full salvation. 
This change is so fundamental and far-reaching in 
one's nature it should be called a change or modi- 
fication of temperament. The matter of tempera- 
ment is not thoroughly understood yet, and is under- 
going careful investigation. Nevertheless, it is the 
author's belief that facts enough from the religious 
experience of people now have been collected to 
justify the assertion that God in his grace even 
changes temperament in this life by adjusting it to 
the normal. Sin in the race has produced lack of 
equilibrium in our natures, throwing some out of 
balance in one direction, others in another. God 
works changes in those fully submitted to him to 
bring all back toward the normal, the perfect man 
in Christ. It is doubtless well to make more of the 
body and its interests as a partaker in the present 
blessings of redemption than is commonly done in 
treatises on this subject. Taking into account our 
knowledge of the relation of mind and body to-day, 
we must expect that putting a man into his right 
mind, bringing harmony, peace, and joy into his 
soul, will without doubt have a beneficial effect upon 
his body and health. So much may assuredly be 
affirmed to-day. Space will not permit us to enter 
upon the subject of therapeutics, or curing disease. 
Divine healing is at times to be had for the asking 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 141 

in faith by those who walk close to God. The 
church is suffering the penalty for its failure to 
notice this truth and use it. In hygiene, in promot- 
ing and preserving health, peace of mind born of 
the Spirit, rightness with God is a large factor. 
Sound medical attestations of this truth are growing 
more and more numerous and prominent. 

The forms of temperament are more fully de- 
lineated in the tenth chapter. The possibility of this 
deep-seated change, which God works through the 
years before and after "the fullness of the blessing," 
while he is conquering and reclaiming the territory 
of the justified sinner's soul and body, is a powerful 
argument to induce the young to surrender to Christ 
and adopt his mode of life. 

HOW MUCH IS LEFT? 

Some one may wish to ask, If not all of inbred 
sin is removed, how much is left? This point is 
not essential to the practical purpose of this book; 
but the question will arise and speculations may 
be allowed; they may set some to thinking. God 
deals with people as individuals, not with men 
in the mass; he never overlooks the race connec- 
tion. The fully saved are very different as to the 
remaining effects of racial sins in the constitution. 
The difficulty of this problem lies in the fact that 
no one knows specifically and fully what limitations 
and defects and disabilities belong to finiteness and 
what are caused by sin in the race. What is left 
is comprehended under inbred sin (b) in the wide 
sense, or, in other words, under tractable or law- 



142 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

respecting depravity or degeneracy. It is lumped 
together by one writer by saying that the entirely 
sanctified man still belongs to ''fallen and degen- 
erate humanity." The prayer is always appro- 
priate : 

** Enable with perpetual light 
The dullness of our blinded sight." 

There is, among highly civilized people, at least, 
at present a great chasm or strife between intellect 
and emotion. We believe this to be due to the 
common sin, not to finiteness; at least it is much 
aggravated by the common sin. This point can be 
more effectively presented in a paragraph in the 
eighth chapter. 

There is at present, too, a great inability to exhibit 
perfect love in outward conduct properly tempered 
with severity and tenderness. It is our understand- 
ing that love, as used in the moral law, in the two 
great commandments of Jesus, includes love of right 
and truth, of moral worth and of the perfect, of the 
ideals and aims of reason. On the other hand, it 
includes also love of beings; of holy persons for 
what they are; of unholy or sinning persons for 
what they should be and may become. The latter 
is the love of benevolence or good will. In God 
both these elements are in proper balance. The 
love of God — the love which he is in himself — 
includes both in harmony, neither quality crowding 
out or unduly diminishing the other; so it was in 
Christ. In man there is a lack of balance between 
the love of righteousness and love of beings, love 
of justice and love of mercy. There is a leaning 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 143 

to one or other of these poles, whether man is in a 
high state of grace or not. 

One man leans to justice, or love of right; he is 
strict in enforcing the law upon himself and others, 
perhaps harsh in exacting penalty. He wants his 
pound of flesh, and wants the state and God to 
have his pound of flesh, of other people anyway. 
Another man lacks in this realm ; love of righteous- 
ness, truth, and moral worth for itself was not 
inserted in his constitution. He is not built on the 
Sinaitic plan. He loves people, would forgive 
everyone, exact no penalty, possibly would ^'resist 
not evil," either individually or vicariously through 
police and armies; he would pardon with tender- 
ness nearly all criminals, and he never believes in 
capital punishment for anything. In the perfect 
man these two attributes should be in proper pro- 
portion; in the only sinless man the world ever 
knew they were in proper balance. Because love 
of righteousness is lacking in man, he knows not 
and feels not the heinousness of sin; therefore he 
cannot understand the atonement or the need of it. 
Man has a hard time constructing theories of the 
atonement, and has never made a satisfactory the- 
ory. Let man have the mind that was in Christ, 
or God's view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, 
and God's love for the sinning person even for a 
brief period, and then he will understand the atone- 
ment and the reason for the death of Christ. He 
will be able to comprehend and adore the beauty 
and glory of Saint John's vision of the rainbow and 
the throne, of the tenderness and the majesty of 



144 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

God. We believe that men are out of balance 
in this regard because of sin in the race. If any 
will show that they are out of balance or equi- 
poise because of finiteness; that the first man be- 
fore he sinned was thus out of balance, and that 
the race would have been, had it never sinned, then 
this point is an error. He should show also that 
Christ's perfection in this particular was due not 
to his sinlessness or perfect humanity, but to his 
supposed omniscience or to some divine quality or 
attribute to which none of the human race can ever 
attain. 

It should be borne in mind that the question about 
how much is left is not a question of quantum, as 
of bulk or physical substance, but of how much 
control of inferior powers by the superior; of how 
much abolition of weakness and effects of previous 
sinful habits of the individual and of the race; of 
how much symmetry and equilibrium in the mind's 
powers and activities; and of proportion between 
conservative and progressive elements in man. It 
is a question of how many new spiritual habits are 
formed under the influence of the Holy Spirit. 

No one should lose hope because of the weakness 
left at the time of full salvation; much of it may 
be removed later in the Christian life. To get 
larger freedom and strength belongs to the growth 
after full salvation. The Christian should always 
remember that God in delivering him from inbred 
and acquired sin, or from the effects of the fall, 
does, if he is allowed, all that infinite love coupled 
with infinite wisdom can do; he will not leave his 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 145 

own to the enemy unaided, but his grace supplies 
all "our need." ''He knoweth our frame, he re- 
membereth that we are dust.'' ''Likewise the Spirit 
also helpeth our infirmities: . . . the Spirit itself 
maketh intercession for us w4th groanings which 
cannot be uttered." God is always working in his 
children, not merely for a few minutes in a religious 
meeting; he is, if they cooperate, removing the 
degeneration and completing the work or process 
of regeneration throughout the being. 

When do people get rid of all effects of the first 
sin and all other sins, personal and racial? Not 
until they get rid of the infirmities produced by 
the sins of the past. "Infirmities are without rem- 
edy till death," says an eminent author ; undoubted- 
ly some of them will continue till death. We hold 
that these effects should always be a diminishing 
force in the life of the Christian. Death is the last 
one to be put under foot. "Dying thou shalt die" 
was the curse ; man is always dying till dead. "All 
pain is partial death." All these evils, the works 
of the devil, remaining depravity, will be destroyed 
from the soul at death. They never trouble the 
body after that. For those who are living when 
Christ comes and are "changed in a moment," these 
effects, if not already absent from that generation, 
are quickly destroyed and without death. In the 
resurrection it is a spiritual body, a glorified body ; 
it is a body free from defect or any injury caused 
by sin, and a fit habitation for a perfect soul. God 
may use the dissolution of the body and reconstruc- 
tion or glorification of it to make the body and 



146 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

spirit what they might have become by easier transi- 
tion without terror or sorrow, had there never been 
sin in the world. The ethical side of death cer- 
tainly, and possibly bodily dissolution also, might 
have been avoided had the race remained sinless. 
Some godly men, also of like passions with us, even 
escaped a terrible effect of sin, probably with pro- 
priety called a part of inbred sin, and punishment 
for sin. Elijah and Enoch were allowed to pass 
from earth without suffering that death which is 
the "sting of sin" and ''the wages of sin." 

FITNESS FOR HEAVEN 

Another question will come to some earnest and 
conscientious soul: How does one get to heaven 
with some inbred sin left? To discuss this is out- 
side the scope of this treatise, which deals chiefly 
with observed facts of life in this world, not with 
theological speculations about heaven or its inhabit- 
ants. But the question will not down, and the light 
which comforts the author, if stated in a few words, 
may radiate to others. It is the willful spirit, the 
spirit of personal revolt against God and righteous- 
ness, which shuts one out of heaven. The Bible 
does not say whether the scars of sin, of personal 
sins or racial sin, appear in heaven or not. It does 
not affirm that the scars or effects of ancestral sin 
would exclude any from heaven; or that inbred 
sin minus any personal yielding to it would exclude 
one from heaven. No texts in the Bible giving lists 
of sins or qualities which exclude from heaven, like 
Rev. 21. 8 and others, mention depravity or inbred 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 147 

sin as a separate item. They refer to the personal 
behavior or life, not to infirmity or inherited condi- 
tion by itself, which never breaks out into action 
and always remains apart from personal increment 
or modification. 

"Infirmities, hidden from ourselves (Psa. 19. 12), 
are covered by the blood of Christ without a definite 
act of faith, in the case of the soul vitally united 
with him.'^i May it not be proper to consider that 
this reasoning applies to all inbred sin, that is, to 
all effects of racial sin, as to infirmity, as far as 
getting to heaven is concerned ? It seems to fit the 
case of those dying in infancy, who have no knowl- 
edge of the Christ, and, as far as we know, cannot 
be "vitally united with him." L. R. Dunn holds 
that the carnal mind does not exclude from heaven 
if one repents and believes on Christ.^ Bishop 
Hedding agrees with Dr. Dunn.^ It does not exclude 
infants from heaven. It is probably correct to 
hold that inbred sin alone, apart from any personal 
yielding to it in a responsible condition, does not 
exclude from heaven. Probably it would in strict 
justice; but God is not dealing with the race in 
strict justice, but under a dispensation of grace. 
He has an eternal purpose to save all who can be 
saved. The benefits in Christ more than compen- 
sate for the loss in Adam. Those who are shocked 
by this statement will do well to pause and see if 
they have not mentally attached the properties of 
voluntary sin to inbred sin or depravity on account 



* Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers, p. 46. 

2 Manual of Holiness, pp. 85, 86. ^ Ibid., p. 117. 



148 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of the similar sound of the word or looseness of 
thought. 

How infants and certain defective classes appro- 
priate salvation, how they are transformed into 
Christlikeness on earth or in heaven, none can tell. 
It is impossible to describe in detail the process of 
subjective sanctification for them on any theory of 
holiness or view of self -improvement in this life, 
which necessarily requires their own acts or co- 
operation. For idiots, infants, and some heathen 
the atonement in Christ makes ample provision, 
according to Methodist theology. God is love and 
purposes to save all the race who will not hinder 
his purpose by their conduct. We may trustfully 
and contentedly leave all these details with Infinite 
Love, being assured that the Judge of all the earth 
will do right. 

Infants are born damaged but not damned. They 
are crippled or corrupted by the sins of ancestors 
but not condemned eternally on account of them; 
they are born redeemed. Infants have all the in- 
bred sin they are going to inherit, yet it is the 
teaching and belief and always has been among 
Methodists that they will be saved. One might say 
that they are saved according to their standing in 
grace, not according to their state. They are 
''counted" justified freely by grace till they repu- 
diate this by their own act. There are good reasons 
for believing that they will not repudiate Christ 
in the world of light, and that their service will be 
strong and continuous. What is lost in Adam is 
more than restored in Christ (Rom. 5. 21). 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 149 

Probably it is well to hold that the justified are 
saved by their standing in grace, not by their state, 
at least not exclusively by their state, that is, be- 
cause they are so perfect or righteous. They are 
not rejected because, after taking sincerely the first 
step in the Christian life, they have not taken a sec- 
ond or tenth step, or lived long enough to polish 
up character, lay aside every vestige of the old life, 
or attain all the graces God desires them to attain. 
Justification that will not take a man clean as to 
his record into heaven is not worth bothering about. 
^'Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace 
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ : by whom 
also we have access by faith into this grace wherein 
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God'' 
(Rom. 5. I, 2). If a man has peace with God, God 
cannot consign the man to the company that is at 
war with God. If in a justified state, one cannot 
be condemned, else he would not be justified. *'It 
is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" 
(Rom. 8. 33, 34.) The penitent malefactor was 
probably saved without any instruction as to holi- 
ness, regeneration, or inbred sin; his heart and 
conscience told him that he ought to repent; and 
he did, and believed on the other Crucified One as 
his Saviour. 

In regard to the salvation of those who are 
entirely sanctified in this life, the same theological 
difficulty exists for getting into heaven as for the 
''merely justified." They have many infirmities and 
prejudices left, remaining efifects of the sins of 
ancestors; they confessedly have not attained ideal 



ISO AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

moral perfection; they are not intrinsically fit for 
heaven. There is much in their state and conduct, 
in their sins of ignorance and omission, which 
merits and receives the disapproval of God. They, 
too, are saved, like others, by their standing in 
Christ, not because of the great attainments made 
in the destruction of the sinward tendency or in 
getting a pure heart or of other good works. They 
can enter heaven only through the merits and atone- 
ment of Christ. 

Those who have opportunity and length of life 
after conversion must do all they possibly can to 
make their state correspond to their standing in 
Christ ; if not, they may lose their standing. They 
should reckon themselves ''dead indeed unto sin" till 
they are dead to actual sin. If a regenerate man 
receives competent instruction about full salvation, 
or sees that he ought to seek this state in the Chris- 
tian life and maintain a closer walk with God, and 
he refuses, it is not sound theology to say that he is 
lost because of his inbred sin which was not re- 
moved. He is lost, as he may be, because of his 
personal sin in refusing the light and in neglecting 
to follow the Saviour's leading. Such a one is 
drawing back and soon may not be a justified man. 
This is gospel truth ; it is much needed. May the 
great Searcher of hearts apply it so that none will 
dare to refuse perfect obedience to their Saviour. 

Some may quote the text, ''Follow peace with all 
men, and holiness ["the sanctification," Am. R. V.], 
without which no man shall see the Lord'' (Heb. 
12. 14). He would be a rash, if not a harsh, judge 



INBRED SIN ENLARGED BY PRACTICE 151 

who applied this Hterally to infants six months old 
or less before they could be admitted to heaven, 
and required them in their own free choice and 
development to pass through the process of convic- 
tion for sin, repentance, justification, and entire 
consecration. It is reasonable to believe, and it 
rests on good exegesis and Scripture usage to hold, 
that all the truly justified have this holiness or 
sanctification referred to in the passage quoted. 
The New Testament continually calls the justified 
holy; this Scripture usage will be referred to more 
fully in the sixth chapter. They are holy, though 
not perfectly holy in the sense of subjective attain- 
ment; and sanctification has begun in them, as 
Wesley and his followers have taught, and as all 
admit. The regenerated man is exhorted in this 
verse to pursue peace and holiness, to "perfect holi- 
ness,'' to walk in that spirit in which he received 
Christ; then he will have more holiness. He has 
peace and holiness at the new birth, and he is to 
maintain and increase these. The disciple is to 
continue to walk in the peace, purity of purpose, 
and detachment from the world and its lusts, in 
which he started, without which detachment and 
sanctity no one shall see and enjoy God as a son. 
Without a whole-hearted choice of holiness and a 
suitable disposition no one with developed character 
can enjoy heaven. This verse does not present the 
subject of inbred sin. Whether life on earth be 
long or short, whether he have time to attain a 
certain definable state called a second blessing or 
not, he is in the fold of Christ. By common consent 



IS2 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

this verse is not made to apply to infants and the 
irresponsible. 

The following thoughts from A. M. Falrbairn 
seem appropriate and helpful here : *'In what sense 
is the common or collective evil sin? It denotes a 
privative and potential state, a state without merit 
or demerit. All the qualities proper to personal 
action are absent. As potential it is a center or 
seat of the energies, all still latent, stored by the 
past in the new organism, waiting only the fit con- 
ditions to develop into activity." "While all men 
suffer from the defects of nature, for them no one 
is condemned; from them everyone needs to be 
saved; on account of them no one will be lost. As 
the sin is common the way out is common; the 
God who judges the irresponsible nature sinful will 
not deal with it as if it were responsible for its sin." 
Speaking of the atonement, he says: "Christ's obe- 
dience is the cause of a collective righteousness 
which cancels for the irresponsible and guiltless the 
evil of the collective sin. As regards the guilty and 
responsible, it makes the salvation of no man 
actual, but of all men possible."^ 

1 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology. 



CHAPTER V 
Inbred Sin and Infirmities 

eradication or suppression? 

The question has been raised, not of the first im- 
portance, as to whether one should speak of the 
eradication or the suppression of inbred sin. Some- 
times it seems to be chiefly a question of words, or 
possibly of ''our set." The difference does not seem 
to be great enough to divide godly people who 
have been made perfect in love; it is on a very 
minute point concerning a very recondite subject, 
heredity. Suppression means that none of this in- 
nate sinward tendency, source of sinful tempers 
and works of the flesh, possesses any control over 
one, impels him toward disobedience, or is in any 
wise felt as a hindrance in the Christian life. The 
evil propensities have no life while one abides in 
Christ. The Standard Dictionary says that to sup- 
press means, *'To put down or put an end to by 
force; overpow^er; crush; subdue; as, to suppress 
an insurrection." A second meaning is, "To with- 
hold from expression or utterance; as, to suppress 
a sigh." The noun "suppression" means, "A forci- 
ble putting or keeping down ; repression ; restraint ; 
as, the suppression of disorder, of evidence, of a 
newspaper." In biology it means, "The nondevelop- 
ment of a part normally present; complete abortion 
or obliteration." In medicine it is still more em- 

153 



tS4 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

phatic as to the nonexistence of a secretion. The 
suppression or destruction of rebelHon in the soul 
comes very close, at least, to describing what is done 
by the Spirit in the removal of inbred sin in the 
narrow sense. Eradication means that this evil ten- 
dency is out of the nature and being, as some say, 
or at least out of the heart. But it is the teaching 
of Wesley and of most writers on the subject that 
if one does not cling to Christ the sinful proclivities 
come back^ assume their old proportions, and rule 
again. ^Tor he (Christ) does not give them light 
but from moment to moment ; the instant he with- 
draws all is darkness. . . . For God does not give 
them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive 
a supply every moment, nothing but unholiness will 
remain."! If any quality or propensity is exter- 
minated, annihilated, or eradicated, it would seem 
as if its appearance again must be only by a new 
creation; but Wesley says only "unholiness re- 
mains." Is it not a powerful microscope that can 
distinguish between this kind of eradication and 
suppression? John Wesley was not at all finical 
on this point; quoting an objector, Wesley makes 
him say, ''However, sin is only suspended in them, 
it is not destroyed." Wesley replies, ''Call it what 
you please. They are all love to-day, and they take 
no thought for to-morrow."2 Writing to Mrs. 
Maitland in 1763 Wesley says: '"But is there no 
sin in those who are perfect in love?' I believe not; 
but be that as it may, they feel none — no temper 
contrary to pure love — while they rejoice, pray, 

^ Wesley, Plain Account, p. 33. ^ Ibid., p. 61. 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 155 

and give thanks continually. And whether sin is 
suspended, or extinguished, I will not dispute ; it is 
enough that they feel nothing but love. This, you 
allow, we should daily press after. And this is all 
I contend for.''^ Abiding in Christ is the sole and 
exclusive way to keep from falling into voluntary 
sin. Jesus says, ''Without me [severed from me] 
ye can do nothing" (John 15. 5). 

L. R. Dunn says : ^'There is a difference between 
repression and suppression. When a rebellion is 
only repressed, it is still a rebellion; when it is 
suppressed, it is no more. So while depravity is 
only repressed it still exists, like a chained criminal ; 
but when it is suppressed, depravity is no more. 
The theory of repression is purely Calvinistic ; the 
theory of suppression is Arminian Wesley anism, 
and the teaching o£ the Word of God."^ This 
shows the different use of words by different 
writers. The quotation from Daniel Curry previ- 
ously made shows in what sense he viewed the vic- 
tory over ''indwelling sin.'' The complete subjuga- 
tion of sinward tendencies, or their banishment 
from the heart, answers every practical purpose as 
showing the power of the Saviour to keep people 
in everyday life and avoids metaphysical difficulties. 
To say that a good man, not a Christian, may by 
force of will without prayer repress evil habits or 
innate tendencies, is to state facts; but this work 
is not the same as the deliverance of the Christian 
from the power of sin within him by the power of 
the Spirit of God. The first is a purely human 

^ Works, vol. vi, p. 752. ^ Manual of Holiness, p. 84. 



156 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

work, a good work; but something better is possi- 
ble to him who has knowledge of the Scripture and 
believes in and seeks divine aid. The point which 
one should hold to is that God does this work in 
the soul in answer to the prayer of faith ; it is not 
the individual's own act; and deliverance is not 
possible through his strength alone. 

A well-known fact of experience, like the follow- 
ing, throws some light on this subject. People 
who have been made perfect in love and who fall 
from this state — would that it never occurred! — 
frequently fall at the solicitation of an old besetting 
sin; they get into wrong where they had most 
difficulty in getting out. The weakness or suscepti- 
bility at that point is very great. Some fully saved 
men must keep away from the sights and odors of 
intoxicating liquor; other fully saved men have 
no trouble at this point; they are disgusted with 
drinking places and society but must watch another 
avenue of approach. This shows a striking differ- 
ence between the two persons in regard to the non- 
existence of the old appetite, after a certain date 
or religious uplift, in one who once had it, and 
the nonexistence of the appetite in another who 
never had it. This is really a question about pro- 
pensity and susceptibility. One side says, propen- 
sity is out or is annihilated; but susceptibility re- 
mains and may be very great. Another side says 
propensity or the evil desires are *Mead," not mani- 
festing themselves in the conduct in any way or 
harassing their former possessor. They are crowded 
down or completely subdued by the largeness of 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 157 

Christ's presence and life within, not eradicated. 
May not these be two ways of stating substantially 
the same truth? Suppression in some of its mean- 
ings is equivalent to annihilation; in others it is 
not. Brother need not quarrel with brother for 
using the word '^suppression" not in the sense of 
annihilation, but of keeping out of the heart and 
life the evil tendencies, because the life and heart 
are filled with the spirit of Christ. Without dis- 
puting about the hidden condition within, about the 
existence or nonexistence of an inscrutable fountain 
of evil within, both sides and all agree that the 
manifestations or expression of sinful tempers, 
pride, covetousness, of all sins of the tongue, and 
of all other works of the flesh, must not be felt in 
the heart or appear in the daily life of the Christian. 
In the conduct of the fully saved man they do not 
appear while he keeps himself and abides in Christ. 
Instead of an artificial appetite, repugnant to 
nature, even the nature of the beast, take, for ex- 
ample, a natural appetite or passion, like the sexual 
passion; it is not eradicated, only reduced, if it was 
excessive or abnormal previously, to a normal con- 
dition or nearer to it by the ^'fullness of the bless- 
ing." Likewise the instinct of self-preservation is 
not eliminated; but a tendency to resent a personal 
wrong or injury with too much vehemence is re- 
duced and put under control. Irrational or malicious 
anger must be put out of the heart ; but holy anger 
or proper moral indignation against wrong may 
exist. It should probably be as strong against 
injustice done to one far distant, or to an insig- 



158 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

nificant member of a so-called lower or despised 
class, as to one's self. 

To account for the condition of the fully saved 
man after his fall may be reasonable and easier if 
the victory is described not by the annihilation, but 
by the suppression of sin's effects or by the power 
of Christ banishing all sinful tendencies from his 
heart and life as long as he abides in Christ. The 
Scriptures do not seem to make fine enough dis- 
tinctions or to go into heredity or metaphysical 
speculation sufficiently to pin one down to either 
word or to any one word or phrase, so that it is a 
matter of ''orthodoxy," or of life and death, which 
word is used. Through education, custom, and 
Scripture usage the author has preferred to speak 
of the removal of sinwardness from the heart and 
conduct and of the ''crucifying of the flesh." At 
the same time he would deem it very unwise and 
undoubtedly un-Christlike to quarrel with or fight 
the man or company who live clean and spotless 
lives before God, and are evidently used by him to 
promote his kingdom, and do not agree with the 
writer on the use of the word "eradication." 

INFIRMITIES 

Something must be said on this phase of the sub- 
ject on account of the common usage of the term, 
though, on the view of inbred sin given in this work, 
this part need not necessarily have a separate treat- 
ment. This word "infirmity" is one of those general 
terms which cover a multitude not of intentional 
sins, but of weaknesses, defects, shortcomings. 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 159 

effects of Christian warfare, and disabilities of 
heterogeneous varieties. The subject of inbred sin 
takes one into a boundless bog, a treacherous 
morass, where he is liable to sink in the quicksands 
anywhere; if he escapes from this, he finds himself 
wandering in a vast thicket of infirmities before 
he gets solid rock under his feet and clear sky and 
sunshine over his head. An effort has been made 
here to classify these infirmities, which play a con- 
spicuous part in writings on this subject; no previ- 
ous attempt is known to the author as a guide. It 
has proved a difficult task on account of the num- 
ber and variety of them. 

I. There are infirmities which belong, either as 
possibility or actuality, to finiteness and are inno- 
cent. These would exist in some measure had there 
never been sin in the race. Some of these belong 
to the body, such as weariness, hunger, fatigue, and 
probably some sickness or disease. The first three, 
and possibly others, the Sinless One had. Others 
pertain to the mind, as ignorance of the future, of 
many laws of nature, and the like. Then there are 
the limitations of human existence and probably 
some of the frailties of old age. Few or none of 
these, as far as we know, are necessarily results of 
racial sin. We would like to have the word re- 
stricted to this and the following kind; when not 
so used, label it ''sin-caused infirmities." Where 
extreme weariness is prolonged and sleeplessness 
arrives, and then nervousness and perhaps nervous 
prostration from overwork, religious work, perhaps, 
human weakness passes into disease; it is hard to 



i6o AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

draw the line here. The same noun and verb are 
used often in Scripture for infirmity and sickness: 
"'Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick'' (John 

II- 3)- 

2. Some infirmities, wounds, and disabilities are 

received from a life of devotion to the Saviour. 
There may have been imprisonments and ship- 
wrecks; an arm may be gone; the back may have 
been beaten till the blood flowed down it; there 
may be weak eyes and other serious disorders. 
These are honorable; they are scars of battle and 
marks of the Lord Jesus. In such infirmities Paul 
said he would glory, not in those of the following 
class. These persecutions and weaknesses only 
come because there is sin in somebody, not by any 
means necessarily in the one who suffers. These 
infirmities often offer opportunities for abounding 
grace ; they often show gloriously how the Saviour's 
power may triumph over human weakness. "My 
strength is made perfect in weakness." 

3. There are many infirmities both of body and 
soul, such as sickness, moral ignorance, and frailties, 
which in some way spring from the sins of the past, 
from those of ancestors and from one's own past 
life. Certain of these pertain to the disposition and 
seem to be more or less fundamental traits of 
character. While some may be on the surface, 
others are doubtless rather deep-seated in the con- 
stitution. They closely concern one's moral life and 
the treatment of his neighbors ; some of these it is 
extremely difficult for others to endure. Some are 
gross breaches of propriety, offenses against good 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES i6i 

taste, and others are numberless little or big selfish- 
nesses in the home. 

There is no sin, say the writers, in infirmity; 
they wish to maintain the proposition that there is 
no sin in the entirely sanctified man, so they leave 
a wide margin for infirmities. But changing the 
name of the tiger does not change his nature. 
There is no sin in infirmities, most of them, if we 
define sin as a voluntary transgression of the law. 
On that definition inbred sin is not sin at all, but 
must have another name, as depravity ; or, as Bishop 
Foster says, so-called sin. Now, many infirmities 
of this class are, according to all the light we can 
get, remains of the sins of our ancestors, or of our 
sins and acquired evil habits before conversion. 
Had they and we not gone so deeply into sin, we 
would not have had these particular infirmities. 
This is some of the inbred sin (b) not removed 
in entire sanctification, some of it, alas ! not till 
death. It does not in every instance bring guilt or 
demerit; it is our misfortune; it does need the 
atonement. Daniel Steele and Wesley say the in- 
firmities need the atonement. There is no atone- 
ment made according to the New Testament for 
anything but sin in some form and the effects of 
sin. The relation of the infirmities to voluntary sin 
is finely stated in Milestone Papers, by Daniel 
Steele, not the relation to inbred sin. 

Bishop Hedding, speaking on this subject to can- 
didates for ordination at the New Jersey Confer- 
ence in 1841, said that the entirely sanctified man 
^'has infirmities and unavoidable failings growing 



i62 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

out of the original fall, on account of which he 
ought to say : 

* Every moment, Lord, I need 
The merits of thy death.* " ^ 

Paul knew of infirmities caused by personal sins. 
'Tor he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth 
and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning 
the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak 
and sickly among you, and many sleep" (i Cor. ii. 
^9> 30). The word translated ''weak" is from the 
same stem as the noun "infirmity" or "weakness"; 
as an adjective it is translated weak, not infirm; the 
adjective "infirm" is not in the Bible. The root 
meaning is similar whether the noun or adjective is 
used. "For we have not an high priest which can- 
not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; 
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
without sin" (Heb. 4. 15). Thayer's Greek Lexicon 
in defining this word "infirmity" says that as it is 
applied to the soul one meaning is, "Want of 
strength or capacity to restrain corrupt desires; 
proclivity to sin"; and in this verse the plural is 
used to denote the "various kinds of this proclivity." 
"I speak after the manner of men because of the 
infirmity of your flesh" (Rom. 6. 19). The same 
authority says that "infirmity" refers to the soul 
and means "want of strength or capacity requisite 
to understand a thing" ; here "weakness of the flesh 
denotes the weakness of human nature." This 
comes from the "darkened understanding," or the 

*L,.R. Dunn, Manual of Holiness, p. ii8. 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 163 

''mind void of judgment" due to racial sin. 'Tor 
when we were yet without strength, in due time 
Christ died for the ungodly" (Rom. 5. 6). The 
words "without strength" represent the same adjec- 
tive "weak," which has the same stem as the noun 
of the two preceding quotations translated "infirm- 
ity." This passage seems to mean that while men 
were sinners or ungodly, and unable to help them- 
selves out of their lost condition, Christ died for 
them. Meyer, commenting on this verse, says: 
"The sinfulness is purposely described as weak- 
ness (need of help), in order to characterize it as 
the motive for the love of God interfering to save." 
We believe that there is no doubt that some of 
these obnoxious infirmities are due to racial sin; 
and many of them should be removed along with the 
other elements or factors of inbred sin. They bring 
their possessors near to the point of cracking the 
commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," if 
not of breaking it. Some of the infirmities will 
never get into heaven; if they did, heaven would 
end. The people who have such characteristics or 
idiosyncrasies may be saved "so as by fire" through 
the great mercy of God and faith in Christ. There 
are infirmities which are removable in this life, 
some of which probably are not, some of which cer- 
tainly are not. There are all sorts and conditions 
in this class. There are sensitive infirmities and 
whining infirmities; grumbling and fault-finding 
ones; some are dyspeptic, some are melancholic; 
infirmities retiring and bombastic or swelling ; some 
chattering and others silent ; some loving publicity 



i64 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

and praise and some avoiding it; some are easily 
miffed, and some cannot take a double-barreled hint. 

Not all the qualities which are disagreeable to 
other people are to be called infirmities or effects 
of racial sin or anything wrong at all; they may 
be merely limitations or weaknesses inseparable 
from finiteness and lack of omniscience. Certain 
excellences of Christian character are highly un- 
popular in a wicked world. The disciples' good 
points and even graces of the spirit are sometimes 
considered bad by the unsaved. Even certain good 
qualities of Jesus were condemned; his absolute 
rectitude was a source of irritation and punishment 
to wrongdoers. 

This doctrine of infirmities is needed, and may 
be justly held with caution and limitations, but it 
has been greatly overworked. If I, who am entirely 
sanctified, perform a certain act it is infirmity. If 
you perform the same act, who are not entirely 
sanctified, it is sin. This is horrible doctrine. 

The difficulty with some is well described in this 
passage: *'We can picture acquaintances of whose 
integrity of purpose we have no doubt, who cause 
much confusion as they proceed to the accomplish- 
ment of that purpose, who are often insensible to 
their own mistakes and harsh in their judgments of 
other people because they are so confident of their 
own inner integrity. . . . The tendency to be so 
sure of integrity of purpose as to be hardened to 
the means by which it is accomplished is perhaps 
nowhere so obvious as in the household itself."^ 



* Jane Addams, A Function of the Social Settlement, p. 102. 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 165 

The man who is so sure of his integrity is very- 
likely to think, if he be unlearned or ill-mannered, 
that since he is so right in the main he may with 
impunity neglect some of the smaller requirements 
of the law. He may be excused from doing certain 
duties, or twist the law to suit himself, or overlook 
minor matters of courtesy, or crowd his way upon 
other equally religious and well-meaning people. 
This, a mistake in theory, occasions a thousand 
mistakes in practice. Zeal without knowledge or 
good sense is as bad to-day as when Paul bore wit- 
ness against it in his people in the letter to the 
Romans (10. 2). One should get rid of many of 
these weaknesses and thoughtless habits. How it 
would delight the neighbors and sometimes even the 
members of one's own family! Mr. Moody said 
that these very holy people, perfect people, are the 
hardest to get along with; we imagine he knew. If 
anything goes wrong, 'Tt is you who are to blame; 
I am sinless and perfect, and not to blame." Think 
of living alongside that spirit twenty-four hours a 
day for ten years ! 

Some infirmities rub so hard against the second 
great commandment that we fear there is a. veritable 
collision. Such infirmities are far more incon- 
venient for the neighbors than actual sins, at least 
some sins. Take, for example, a man with warm 
imagination and inexperience, not shrewd or of 
good business ability, but honest, making invest- 
ments with other people's money. He loses; as a 
business transaction it might be merely error of 
judgment; as to the relation to the persons who 



i66 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

trusted him, a wrong through ignorance. If the 
same transaction had been conducted with knowl- 
edge, it would be the sin of cheating or deceiving 
in some form and would be called sin. On the 
other hand, a bell boy in a hotel takes a dime acci- 
dentally left an hour on the bureau by the guest. 
The average man would rather put up with the boy's 
sin than the saint's Infirmity, whereby he loses 
one thousand dollars in the investment. Ethically, 
of course, one cannot defend the bell boy. Never- 
theless the Christian should be blameless and harm- 
less, if possible, and avoid giving offense, that the 
gospel be not blamed. 

Then there is the domineering man, whose per- 
sonality is very big and extends to the horizon, so 
that he cannot see others or recognize their rights ; 
born with absolute certainty of his own infallibility, 
full to overflowing of self-importance and push, not 
sensible of others' rights or wishes, he tramples 
ruthlessly over everybody, going on his own way, 
possibly unconscious of the suffering he causes or 
the harm he does. At home he overwhelms the 
personality of wife and children; they must have 
no opinions of their own. In his party caucus or 
in his Conference he must be the whole thing. 
Suppose further that the man baptizes this quality 
with a good name, devotion to the cause; he con- 
secrates it to the Lord and turns it loose in his 
service. The evil he now counts a virtue, and you 
may get something very dangerous and bad. Such 
sanctified infirmities have split churches. 

The opposite of the overbearing or *'bossy" man 



INBRED SIN AND INFIRMITIES 167 

is the very sensitive, shrinking man or woman, with 
keen recognition of the rights of others and anxious 
not to trouble others, so that he keeps out of peo- 
ple's way and can scarcely accomplish anything in 
a world bossed by the foregoing type. 

Now, the Lord would like to cure very many of 
these dear infirmities of his saints; and they — we — 
had better let him do it quickly. As an addition to 
the common statement of the theory of holiness, we 
say, Get rid of two thirds of the third-class in- 
firmities; it is often possible in this life. The 
neighbors will rejoice and some sinners will see 
more of the beauty of holiness. This clearly ele- 
vates the common theory ; this as well as the para- 
graphs on ignorance and on temperament exalt the 
Christian standard, we believe, more than — as it 
may seem to some — it is lowered by saying that we 
do not know that all of the effects of ancestral sin 
are removed from the constitution in full salvation. 

A different treatment of the subject of heredity 
IS possible; we have followed somewhat the tradi- 
tional lines and have tried to avoid controversies 
about the origin of sin. We have sought to put 
the fresh light of modern knowledge upon old con- 
ceptions and formulas ; have only wished to get cer- 
tain difficulties out of the way for that which is to 
come, not to give an exhaustive treatment to this 
part of the subject. Doubtless, in future, when sci- 
entific investigation on species and heredity has 
lifted the veil from the unknown, this subject will 
be presented under other concepts and in clearer 
light. 



CHAPTER VI 

Full Salvation Psychologically Described 

There must be stages in the process of redemp- 
tion; the work is gradual in some respects. The 
important question, then, is. Can anyone trace the 
steps in the appropriation of salvation or mark off 
successive approaches in the transformation into 
Christlikeness ? If any deny that there is a process 
in the redemption of the individual in this life, he 
must hold that a person makes the transition from 
hate to love, from a rebellious sinner to the condi- 
tion of a sinless Saviour, all at once, not merely in 
his will but afso throughout his whole nature. That 
this view is incorrect will be admitted without con- 
troversy. After sufficient study of the facts of 
Christian experience and the classification and 
rational explanation of them under the light of 
psychology and pedagogy, some one ought to be able 
to construct a fairly clear and complete exposition 
of the universal and pivotal experiences, and possi- 
bly also of many of the minor periods and epochs 
in religious development. The problem is plain and 
legitimate, and results should be as certain and use- 
ful as many in the department of secular education. 
In this chapter the attempt is made to describe one 
stage of growth, to show that it is attainable in this 
life, and to make it definite and preachable without 
blushing for one's logic or truthfulness or exegesis. 

i68 



FULL SALVATION 169 

The purpose is to introduce little of the unknown 
and irrelevant, to refer as little as possible to meta- 
physics and recondite subjects like heredity or orig- 
inal sin, and not to stake everything on a theory 
in dogmatics. It is not desirable to take the un- 
tutored yet earnest seeker after truth and high 
Christian attainment into the realm of abstract the- 
ological speculation, or try to have him understand 
the relation of mind to brain in order to be fully 
saved. 

It is doubtless possible to describe the abiding in 
Christ without using Pauline phraseology. The 
author's idea of entire sanctification is to be set 
forth chiefly by describing the process through 
which one enters that life. That the objective point 
may be clear some brief statements as to the mean- 
ing of the word are subjoined. ''Sanctification," 
according to theological usage, denotes all the 
growth in grace from regeneration to the end of 
life. This is a common meaning of the word in all 
denominations. Wesley used the word in this sense ; 
but by attaching the adjective ''entire" he wished to 
give it another meaning, like the following, if com- 
pressed into two or three lines: Entire sanctifica- 
tion denotes that experience, usually instantaneous, 
when the power of indwelling sin is so broken in 
the soul or removed from the soul that one feels 
no sinful desires and gives way to no sinful tem- 
pers, and when the soul is so filled with the Spirit 
that one is enabled to love God with all his heart 
and soul and strength and his neighbor as himself. 
As growth is possible after this experience, and it. 



I70 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

too, goes under the name of "sanctification/" it 
makes one say that a person is sanctified further 
after he is entirely sanctified. In other words, 
''entire" is not synonymous here with completed or 
ended sanctification ; continued growth is possible. 
In the Methodist Catechism No. i the fifty-seventh 
question asks, ''What is sanctification?'' Answer: 
"Sanctification is that act of divine grace whereby 
we are made holy.'' This probably refers to sancti- 
fication at the time of justification. A question on 
this subject in Catechism No. 3, a fuller form, asks, 
"When is sanctification begun?" Answer: "In re- 
generation, by which we receive power to grow in 
grace and in the knowledge of Christ, and to live 
in the exercise of inward and outward holiness." 
The next question is, "What is entire sanctifica- 
tion?" Answer: "The state of being entirely 
cleansed from sin, so as to love God with all our 
heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and our 
neighbor as ourselves." There are many names 
for this stage of Christian experience; as. Chris- 
tian or evangelical perfection, perfect love, the 
baptism with or fullness of the Spirit, full salvation, 
the rest of faith, perfect or continuous abiding in 
Christ, divine union, the life more abundant, and 
many others. 

It would be interesting, were it possible to go 
into exegesis here, to notice the biblical use of the 
words "holy" and "sanctified," as it often differs 
much from the theological use of these words. We 
cannot do better than to recommend to those inter- 
ested a little book by Joseph Agar Beet, Holiness 



FULL SALVATION 171 

as Understood by the Writers of the Bible. Ac- 
cording to good scholarship the word "sanctify'' 
rarely, if ever, in the Bible denotes a gradual pro- 
cess, always an act. "The very idea of holiness 
involves the idea of entirety; for God claims the 
whole of all we have and are." 

Separation from the common or profane — not 
from sin primarily or in the earliest times — and 
standing in a special relation to Deity lies at the 
basis of the idea of holiness in the Bible, especially 
in the Old Testament ; the same idea was common 
among the heathen. The altar or tabernacle or 
person was accounted holy by virtue of a special 
relation to God as his possession. "The priests were 
holy whatever might be their conduct."^ Though 
there is an advance upon the ritual idea in the use 
of the word in the New Testament, yet the early 
Christians talked and wrote largely under the influ- 
ence of the Old Testament ideas and language and 
the uses of the temple worship. As the old sanctu- 
ary was holy, so now the believers are holy because 
they are considered God's temple. The New Testa- 
ment writers "call believers saints [holy ones] with- 
out thought of the degree of their Christian life 
or the worthiness of their conduct. . . . This is the 
objective holiness of the church of Christ."^ Their 
name "saints," or "holy," shows what God requires 
them to be and points out their privilege. 

In the New Testament the idea of the importance 
of the individual and of the personal relation to the 



* Beet, Holiness as Understood by the Writers of the Bible, p. 40, 
' Ibid., p. 40. 



172 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Saviour becomes more prominent than in the Old 
Testament. Persons who could intelligently devote 
themselves to a holy God are to become like that 
God in character and conduct. The ethical content 
of the word comes to the front with the idea of 
personal holiness and separation from what is dis- 
pleasing to God. Disciples are a possession pur- 
chased by the Saviour and deeded or dedicated to 
him by themselves of their own free choice, that 
is, holy ; they must show their devotion in all they 
say and do, in their whole purpose in life, and 
nothing foreign to this devotement must interfere. 
For such "to admit sin or selfishness into their 
hearts" would be sacrilegious. This gives a sub- 
jective holiness, a state which all believers should 
attain. 

Wesley says correctly that ''the term sanctified 
is continually applied by Saint Paul to all that were 
justified,''^ that is, to those who devote themselves 
to God in the holy calling of the gospel. Daniel 
Steele says that the Greek word for ''holy" in the 
New Testament "is used technically to designate all 
justified believers, and is translated by the word 
'saints,' or holy ones."^ The term "holy" or "sanc- 
tified" should be certainly applied to the justified 
in common usage now; they are surrendered to 
God, and holy; and subjective sanctification has 
begun, if they are truly born from above. 

"Holiness" is used in the Bible often with and 
without reference to deliverance from sin or defile- 
ment. The latter usage is very common in the Old 

^ Plain Account, p. lo. ' Love Enthroned, p. lo. 



FULL SALVATION 173 

Testament, where inanimate objects, as the candle- 
stick, are said to be holy. The sanctification of 
Christ did not consist in removing original sin from 
him. ^'Sanctification" is never used in the Bible 
in the sense of the destruction of all inbred or 
original sin, with any definition of original sin made 
by Augustine or any subsequent writer, and the 
Bible never defines or uses that term. The phrase 
"sanctify from sin" does, not occur in the Bible. 
The New Testament knows not two classes of 
church members, one of which is characterized by 
the annihilation of all inbred sin, while the other is 
not. It describes *'babes in Christ" and ''carnal/' 
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the "spir- 
itual," "fathers," and those "of full age" or "per- 
fect." The epistles mention holy people or saints 
against whom some objection or fault lies; whose 
state has not been brought up to their standing; 
who have not been perfectly true in life to their 
calling or sanctification; who waver, are unstable, 
and are captivated by new and changing doctrines ; 
whose conduct is not always in accord with their 
ownership by Deity. They are exhorted to become 
spiritual, to be settled, established, and to let the 
life be completely determined by the Spirit, the 
Holy Spirit, who is in them, not by the flesh ; they 
are to be wholly sanctified, to go on to perfection, 
or to make the outer life each day correspond to the 
profession or calling. They are sanctified but not 
wholly sanctified, not meeting satisfactorily all the 
tests of the outward life. The Bible does not say 
that to sanctify wholly, to be filled with the Spirit 



174 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

or baptized with the Spirit, and to be perfected in 
love are synonymous terms. They may be synony- 
mous, but the Bible is silent about that, though 
religious writers may affirm it. 

The idea of getting rid of sin, the negative side 
of a holy life, is usually in the Scriptures expressed 
by other words than "sanctification" or "holiness," 
which refers to the positive side of a right life and 
includes much more than purification. For the put- 
ting away of sin or defilement the Bible uses such 
terms as ''purify," ''cleanse/^ "dead unto sin," "cru- 
cify the flesh with the affections and lusts," "mor- 
tify your members" and "deeds," and other phrases. 
It uses other words than "sanctification" to denote 
"growth in grace." "Pet passages of Scripture are 
dangerous." 

There is in Scripture a tremendous emphasis upon 
holiness of heart and life; the promises of it and 
of power to keep it, as well as the prayers for it, 
are numerous, familiar, and need not be quoted 
here. The Bible demand is not that believers exist 
or continue on a low plane of piety for a time, 
"merely justified," and then step up to a higher 
stage called entire sanctification. God wants the 
perfect life from the entrance upon discipleship ; 
yea, more, God's first demand, in fact, is for perfect 
righteousness from everybody from the cradle to 
the grave. But men pay no attention and live a 
while as wicked and rebellious children. God, fail- 
ing to get obedience, reiterates his claim when men 
do repent and yield to him. His demand is that 
they do the best their powers admit and have the 



FULL SALVATION 175 

spirit of Christ from the beginning of this life. It 
is the theory that every disciple is to ''be as his 
Lord" and be perfect in love from the initial stage 
of this life to the end; he is called to be holy at 
once. The practice does not meet this requirement; 
believers strive hard to meet the claims of God's 
law, and, failing often, they beseech God for help 
and receive it by faith, and, being freed from inter- 
nal hindrances to pleasing God, rise to a higher level 
of ''godly conversation.'^ The gospel dispensation 
is superior to the old in that it not only presents 
demands for a righteous life, but gives the power 
to live it with a clear conscience. This Jesus prom- 
ised to the members of the kingdom of God. 

]\Ien do not go ordinarily to the Bible to find out 
that a second blessing is needed ; they learn that in 
the hard school of experience ; the universal appeal 
of nearly all writers is to experience, to biography 
and psychology. This takes the student into another 
realm than the Bible, and shows that his work is 
concerned with the secrets of the heart and nature 
as well as with the Word. The Bible gives facts of 
the religious life, but not scientific arrangement of 
the facts or definitions or theology; this is man's 
work. Leaving out the time when some are said 
to have been filled with the Spirit on a particular 
day, it is difficult to tell, with a few exceptions, 
when many, even of the prominent Bible characters, 
were first converted or entirely sanctified ; the spe- 
cific steps of their religious progress are mostly un- 
known. The Bible laconically says of certain dis- 
ciples, "They forsook all and followed him." After 



176 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

three or four years of following they appear to be 
very different men; it is very difficult to trace the 
change and say, ''Here it is," or, ''There it is." 
Only one hundred and twenty were present on the 
day of Pentecost, most of them unknown to us by 
name ; upon some others on particular occasions the 
Holy Spirit was poured out. Notwithstanding this, 
we get only snatches and glimpses of great religious 
uplifts. The Bible neither teaches zoology, phys- 
iology, nor religious psychology, nor gives in 
detail and in order the exact steps by which a sin- 
ner is transformed into a saint. If man ever learns 
this he will have to develop it like any other sci- 
ence. The Bible gives some facts in the biography 
of holy men and women; men work over these 
facts, supplement them with facts from the lives 
of other godly people, and construct, if possible, a 
scheme of religious living or determine the best, 
quickest, and most natural mode of transformation 
into the image of Christ. In the early centuries men 
taught that the nearest way to Christlikeness lay 
through celibacy and asceticism. 

Certain correct ideas drawn from the Bible may 
be attached to different words from those which 
the Bible uses for those ideas. There may be little 
harm, if any, in this, if people understand and 
define their terms and do not read their own ideas 
into the terms of the Word of God. This point is 
well illustrated by a colored preacher at New Berne, 
North Carolina, heard by Dr. H. Clay Trumbull 
during the war. His text was, "Lo, I come." He 
began his sermon thus: "D'ye har dat, bredren? 



FULL SALVATION 177 

'Low I come,' not 'High I come.' De Lord Jesus 
comes to de poor and de lowly." That was good 
gospel but poor exegesis of that text. 

CHARACTER AS SUPREME CHOICE 

Full salvation is to be described briefly in terms 
of the known rather than of the unknown, in the 
language of psychology rather than of metaphysics 
or speculative theology. The negative side, the 
destruction of racial sin, has been discussed in the 
preceding chapters and will be largely omitted here. 
The idea of this form of description is that the 
supreme choice permeates the life, radiates through- 
out the nature, and by divine help changes the being. 
In order to imderstand the nomenclature three 
fundamental distinctions must be borne in mind, 
used after the fashion of an old teacher. 

I. The first is the nature or constitution. It de- 
notes one's endowment at birth as to body and 
mind; it is the inherent qualities and powers as 
distinguished from those which may be afterward 
assumed or acquired. Much of this unfolds grad- 
ually in the field of consciousness in ordinary life; 
some of it stretches beyond the threshold of con- 
sciousness and lies in the subconscious realm. 
Some of the elements of this endowment may be 
thus specified: There are the physical force, the 
power to grow ; the special senses and various bod- 
ily organs, sound and healthy, diseased or with 
tendency toward certain functional disorders or 
deformed; the appetites; the mental powers, in- 
cluding the will with its strength or weakness, that 



178 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

is, what one will endure or not endure to attain his 
object; emotional predilections and strength of pas- 
sion and desire. This is antecedent to all character 
and the basis of character. 

2. The second is moral character in the primary- 
sense. Moral character in the primary sense is the 
supreme choice of an object of service, of which 
subordinate choices and executive volitions are the 
expression. Many subordinate determinations and 
probably many series of actions and daily decisions 
are needful to carry out the supreme choice into 
execution. By supreme choice is meant the choice 
of an object of service with some intelligence and 
force toward which one will direct his energy 
for a longer or shorter period, and also the direction 
of the energy with reference to that object. It may 
be the ruling purpose of the whole life, and fre- 
quently is in strong natures in adult life, such as 
are not doubleminded or wavering. While a man 
makes self his supreme choice, he is a sinner; every 
one who serves himself serves the devil. When a 
man chooses God and his neighbor as objects of 
service for life, he is a Christian. For God never 
fails to perform his part in renewing the nature 
of such a one who trusts in Christ for pardon. After 
the will has made a choice subsequent choices con- 
tinue or change the character, but do not start from 
a characterless state. Even the first choice does not 
start with a nature as a tabula rasa, or even without 
handicap for the conflict between right and wrong, 
on account of the abnormality or discord due to 
heredity. 



FULL SALVATION 179 

This idea of the continuity of character should be 
maintained as against the view which makes charac- 
ter consist in isolated acts or volitions, an atomistic 
view of character. A person is not wholly bad or 
wholly good, a saint or a sinner, ten times a day, 
or with the decision of every hour. It is in the 
teaching of Jesus that God demands righteousness 
as disposition, a continued, not vacillating, state of 
the heart. *'But rather seek ye the kingdom of 
God'' as the chief end of life. ''No man can serve 
two masters." It is not sensible, not conducive to 
success in good or evil living, for a man to change 
masters every twenty-four hours. 

3. Moral character in the secondary sense is the 
effect of these choices on the state of the intellect, 
sensibilities, the will itself, and on the body, includ- 
ing all habitual modes of action. Character in the 
secondary sense is the nature or constitution molded 
by choices and volitions and by personal practices 
and habits. This would include in the character in 
the secondary sense the disposition, affections, 
tastes, and habits of life as far as formed or modi- 
fied by voluntary action. 

What can one build on the foundation given him 
at birth or on his inheritance from the race ? How 
far can man and God working together modify or 
transform this inheritance during his life on earth 
so that the evil effects of racial sin and acquired 
sinful states will disappear ; so that all noble traits, 
refined tendencies, and spiritual capacities deposited 
in his nature by the race shall expand and develop 
toward perfection and thus the moral image of God 



i8o AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

be restored in him? This is the whole problem 
of regeneration and sanctification in this Hfe. It 
is well to distinguish in thought, at least, between 
growth or modification of a man's being by his own 
efforts and that wrought in him by environment, 
sometimes against his will; this refers to his home 
life, education at school and elsewhere, the influence 
of the current ideas of his age, and of his position 
in business and in political and social life. The 
word ^^heart," which must be repeated so often, is 
a key word, and is used rather in the Scripture 
sense than with the popular meaning of the present 
day. *'Heart" in popular speech means commonly 
the emotions or feelings as contrasted with the 
head or intellect ; not so in the Scripture. '^Heart" 
in the Old Testament and in the New Testament 
usage ''denotes the whole internal seat of life, the 
power which embraces all the activity of reason and 
will within the personal consciousness." It is also 
the center of the emotions and desires as of the 
higher spiritual and psychical life. This statement 
of Meyer's is sustained by Delitzsch in his Biblical 
Psychology, and by B. Weiss in his Biblical The- 
ology of the New Testament. ''Heart" thus means, 
in part at least, about the same as self-conscious- 
ness, or the conscious mental Hfe. "As he thinketh 
in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23. 7). "Keep thy 
heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues 
of life" (Prov. 4. 27,), "A good man out of the 
good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good 
things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure 
bringeth forth evil things" (Matt. 12. 35). The 



FULL SALVATION i8i 

Scripture word or phrase to contrast with ''heart," 
somewhat as our use of ''heart" contrasts with 
"head," is "bowels," as, "bowels of mercies" and 
compassion, as in Col. 3. 12 and Phil. 2. i, and in 
other passages. In Hebrew this phrase usually re- 
fers to the tender affections, as pity and love. 

To determine how the work of sanctification pro- 
ceeds one must notice briefly what precede it, name- 
ly, justification and regeneration, which always 
occur together; the first concerns pardon or the 
standing of the person before God, the second the 
state or the renewal of the nature. It would eluci- 
date the subject in hand far better to give full treat- 
ment first to the experience in regeneration, but 
space forbids. In a clear and intelligent conversion 
in adult life the soul, realizing its sins and turning 
from them with sorrow and loathing, makes love 
to God and neighbor its supreme choice, however 
dim or inadequate the idea of God and the moral 
law may be. The soul accepts the moral law as 
obligatory and resolves to live according to God's 
standard. In its proper state this decision fully 
excludes all intentional sinning; nevertheless in 
after days it may weaken or fluctuate. This change 
concerns character in the primary sense ; this change 
reverses character in the primary sense; this deci- 
sion while it lasts determines and fixes character 
in the primary sense. At the time of this change 
the soul reviews its past life and deeds, not so much 
— or even very little — its states or conditions; it 
pronounces its past conduct wrong; it summons its 
powers under the light of the gospel truth and the 



i82 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

influence of the Holy Spirit and makes the great 
decision, adopting God's way for the future, having 
sought pardon for the past. The one great act has 
two sides : turning from sin, turning to God. The 
first is the renunciation of the old evil walk; the 
second is the acceptance of the new life in Christ. 
This great choice, a supreme choice, is the central 
element in the complex experience, called conver- 
sion or regeneration, as far as the human side is 
concerned. Another point must be guarded before 
the divine side is presented. 

The focal point or central change in conversion 
is in the will, though probably not always the most 
noticeable change ; not in the will in a narrow sense, 
but will as fundamental feeling, as Rosmini would 
call it; the power to take attitudes for or against 
other personal beings. Animals have it with or 
without little concrete reason and with instinct; 
man has it with moral reason, and it should obey 
reason. This primitive power can work at once 
without waiting or education. Accompanying this 
basal act of the will is usually a more or less 
thorough upheaval of the emotions; first probably 
deep sorrow burdens the soul under the convicting 
power of the Spirit of God ; then there is an influx 
of deep joy and peace, the like of which that soul 
has never known, caused by the sense of pardon 
and the approving smile of the heavenly Father. 
To the uninstructed it may seem that the excitement 
of the emotions, the peace and joy, is the principal 
change in the soul born from above. It may be the 
most conspicuous element to some, but it is not the 



FULL SALVATION 183 

most fundamental or deep-seated work in the 
reformation of the soul; and in many souls, espe- 
cially in the young, the emotional factor may be 
small, or a very insignificant part of the whole work. 
It may be helpful to some to add another item at 
this stage of Christian experience, which does not 
necessarily belong in this paragraph. This joy, 
finding expression in various ways according to 
inclination, is often so great, and the new life in 
the soul so abounds, that it seems to sweep away 
the old life completely. The new love is so power- 
ful often that it seems as if God's complete reign 
in the soul were already begun ; every evil thought, 
feeling, and desire is banished for the time. This 
is right. If it always continues thus with the faith- 
ful soul, one might say, perhaps, that sanctification 
is entire or nearly so from this point. This is the 
soul's honeymoon, enjoying life with the bride- 
groom. But emotions fluctuate; their name means 
the moved and the movable; the term refers to 
that part of our soul's activity which ebbs and flows, 
up and down. The feelings of the human bride 
and bridegroom do not always remain the same. 
So the soul after its outburst of new and glowing 
affection for God is likely to return after more or 
less time to a quieter state. Then some of the old 
tendencies to evil, thought to have vanished, possi- 
bly, reappear and bestir themselves, like the hvmger 
of a person long fasting through a crisis demand- 
ing concentrated thought and action, like a great 
fire, or caring for a sick friend at a critical period. 
Then the new convert may be troubled with doubts, 



i84 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

tempted to believe he was not truly regenerated, 
or to wonder if he has backslidden. He should in 
no wise allow himself to be disturbed or to think 
that his experience was not genuine. He needs at 
this time a kind and wise spiritual director to show 
him the method of further work needed in his soul; 
to explain how love to God and man may go on 
to a complete triumph in his nature. The flash of 
the first victory is passing, and the soldier of Christ 
must settle down to steady, hard, determined cam- 
paigning against any enemies found lurking within 
as well as all foes without. 

Now mention will be made of the divine side in 
conversion, as referred to in a preceding para- 
graph. The man thus repenting and trusting in 
Christ is justified by God, pronounced guiltless. 
This makes his standing right; he is now a child 
of God by adoption. We are not further to deal 
here with the subject of justification. He is born 
from above or regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and 
this concerns his actual inner state. In this work 
new interests and loves in the soul come to the 
front, as described in the preceding paragraph ; and 
to a great extent sin is banished by the person's will 
and the power of God. Some of the old habits are 
destroyed — it may be an appetite for drink or 
tobacco; the Holy Spirit has entered the personal 
life to renew it wholly, if allowed. Then, too, some 
less artificial or more primary desires are reduced 
more nearly to their normal strength; the sin-dis- 
ordered nature is somewhat straightened out by the 
regenerating influence of the Spirit. "Concurrently 



FULL SALVATION 185 

with pardon, God, in the person of the Holy Ghost, 
returns to and takes up his loving and helpful abode 
in the soul from which guilt expelled him, and by 
his presence and agency he restores the lost equa- 
tion — enables the soul to righteousness, rebuilds the 
shattered constitution, reduces usurpers to subjec- 
tion, and reinstates the rightful sovereign. "^ How 
this is done, or the mode of it, no one can tell, and 
it should not disturb us; we cannot even explain 
the digestion and assimilation of our food. Jesus 
said, ''The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it Cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that 
is born of the Spirit." There is probably a deep 
work in the unconscious realm, the effects of which 
are plainly seen later in the daily life. 

How much of the good already existing in a per- 
son, noble traits, refined aspirations, cultivated 
thoughts, and ideals and attainments in righteous- 
ness, is reinforced and elevated; how much of sin- 
disordered nature is revolutionized and remodeled 
at regeneration, no one can tell. The facts show 
that it varies with different people ; for all come to 
Christ with natures crippled with sin in various ways 
and degrees and often with certain good qualities, 
characteristics, and good purposes already strong; 
some receive and understand the word more clearly 
and quickly than others ; some apprehend Christ by 
faith with firmer grasp and larger comprehension; 
some inbred sin may be removed, as previously de- 
scribed, and very much of acquired sinful states also. 

^ Foster, Philosophy of Christian Experience, p. 119. 



i§6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

In this suppression of the old life and promotion of 
the new life, and the incoming of the divine, the 
work known in almost all theology as sanctification 
is begun. 

Sanctification is a carrying out further toward 
completion of the work begun at the time of re- 
generation. Sanctification is a crucifying of the 
flesh with the affections and the lusts and the put- 
ting on of the new man in Christ. Sanctification 
deals on the negative side with the removal of 
the proneness to sin and such removable weak- 
ness or evil effects of the past intentional or in- 
advertent sins of the individual and of the race as 
were not removed in regeneration. This is as near 
as it can be stated. We have no weights or yard- 
sticks to measure the quantum or how much, so as 
to put it down in definite figures. Sanctification 
deals on the positive side with the subjugation of 
the lower nature by the higher, with the rule of the 
reason over the flesh and passions, with the clarify- 
ing of the sin-darkened intellect to discern the divine 
will, with the sensitizing of the conscience, or, in a 
word, with the filling with the Holy Spirit. 

Can one find any point or a definite time or state 
where this sanctification reaches so far into the per- 
son — his character, nature, or conscious life — ^that it 
may safely be called entire? This is the whole 
problem. The name is taken by Wesley, doubtless, 
from the words in i Thess. 5. 23, "The very God 
of peace sanctify you wholly." Bishop Foster's 
statement of the problem is this : 'The difficulty is 
to make plain what that sin is, from which Christian 



FULL SALVATION 187 

men are not free, which remains in, or is found still 
cleaving to, believers ; how to discriminate between 
the some sin that is removed in regeneration and 
the some sin that remains. And it is just around this 
point that revolves the whole question of entire sanc- 
tification, both as to what it is and its possibility. 
It has to do with that sin that remains. It removes 
that remainder of sin. Regeneration took some sin 
away; entire sanctification takes away what was 
left."i He then proceeds to show that sin which is 
removed in regeneration and justification is "ge- 
nerically different" from the sin left which is to be 
removed in entire sanctification. The former is the 
guilt of actual sins; the latter is a state, carnality 
or depravity. 

In the work of sanctification the center of gravity is 
shifted from its position in justification. Sanctifica- 
tion works more with the character in its secondary 
sense and with the nature or constitution; conver- 
sion and justification work chiefly, not exclusively, 
with the moral character in the primary sense, or 
the will. The ego, or the I, the focus of the moral 
life, seems to be the point or handle which God's 
Spirit first takes hold of to lift up the man. Sanc- 
tification is the completer realization of the very 
work begun in regeneration ; it might be called re- 
generation in the second degree. This work of 
sanctification deals with the straightening out of the 
sin-damaged nature, cleansing the heart from the 
remainder of the inherited and acquired tendencies 
to disobedience, and filling the individual with the 

^ Christian Purity, p. 117. 



i88 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

life more abundant and the fullness of the Spirit* 
Man first went into sin through a rebellious act, a 
wrong choice of the will ; then followed the darken- 
ing of his mind, the blunting of his conscience, and 
damage and death of the body. Man gets back to 
righteousness in the same way — ^by first making his 
supreme choice right and receiving pardon or justifi- 
cation through repentance and faith. Then he must 
allow God to work with him in remodeling and 
renovating his whole life and nature. This is the 
process requiring time and labor, prayer and suffer- 
ing. 

Man is not simply pure will ; possibly, if he were, 
full salvation might be complete and finished at the 
time of regeneration. He is a soul with its various 
powers and affections ; with an imagination, possibly 
perverted, a conscience, a sense of the presence of 
God, and of moral relations blunted by ages of dis- 
use and sin and very inadequate to its function. 
Man has, further, a body with its appetites and 
passions needing control even in their normal state 
as God created them ; but they are much more diffi- 
cult to control as they exist in us all now corrupted 
by sin in the race. To the original depravity re- 
ceived at birth, the individual has added acquired 
depravity by the formation of habits of evil in 
thought, feeling, and action. He has a nervous 
system in maladjustment often, perhaps weakened 
by narcotics or stimulants. The newborn soul must 
live in a world hostile to it, and is surrounded by 
evil forces seeking its destruction ; what is probably 
worse, or more insidious, it is waylaid by allurements 



FULL SALVATION 189 

and enticements to that which seems to be good, to 
pleasure and apparent profit, seduced by the example 
of careless or mistaken and merely formally re- 
ligious people, so that it may lose its God-given life, 
while fancying it is only indulging in innocent enjoy- 
ment. The young convert, on the other hand, is 
introduced into a company of people who pursue 
righteousness, study the Word of God, observe ordi- 
nances and sacraments, and strive to work out their 
salvation. He should enter the church ; here he may 
realize God as his helper. '^The church is an insti- 
tution to visualize God." Further progress depends 
on what use he will make of these surroundings. He 
undoubtedly inclines to righteousness, but may not 
decide for ideal righteousness with vigor. ^'He may 
not sin openly, but he may dally.'' ''He may not 
wish to yield to temptation, but often makes a weak 
resistance." 

The supreme choice in conversion, if maintained, 
settles the question of loyalty to God, but it does not 
at once renovate and reintegrate all the conscious 
life of the man and restore his nature to a normal 
condition. The right attitude of the will does not 
immediately crucify the old man or overthrow the 
old self life and put into its place a life holy in all 
details of conduct, in affections and desires. It does 
not make righteousness permeate the being or pre- 
vail in all the recesses and activities of the soul and 
in all the habits and appetites of the body. Probably 
this is not possible to mere power in its ordinary 
working in man or to a choice suddenly, without a 
miracle. It would be like making a broken femur 



I90 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

grow together in fifty-nine minutes or less by sheer 
act of the will. ''The new constructive life [of 
regeneration] has to contend with all these subjec- 
tive conditions; it must meet and master these 
mighty forces'' of the old life and ''reduce this an- 
archy to order."i 

Now, this new life of the soul and new determina- 
tion of the will for holiness must either by a gradual 
process or by a sudden act, or both — if by sudden 
act, God is the chief actor — extend itself to the intel- 
lect, conscience, affections, and bodily organs. The 
members must reach that condition in which they 
yield themselves readily to righteousness as they once 
yielded themselves to sin. "For as ye have yielded 
your members servants to uncleanness and to in- 
iquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your mem- 
bers servants to righteousness unto holiness" (Rom. 
6. 19). The loyalty to God and faithfulness to 
Christ has been settled, as much as it can be by any 
one act of life. But that great decision and the 
blessed invasion of the Holy Spirit in regeneration 
do not guarantee that the orders of the will without 
fail or inner opposition will always be carried into 
execution throughout one's being; that is, volunta- 
rily and habitually in the nerves and in all the activi- 
ties of the spirit. After a time there may be found 
rebels in the territory. "The spirit is willing, but the 
flesh is weak," and inclined to voluntary sins. "For 
to will is present with me ; but how to perform that 
which is good I find not" (Rom. 7. 18). The will 
is loyal, but the feet of the old ballet dancer arc not 

1 Foster, Philosophy of Christian Experience, p. 132. 



FULL SALVATION 191 

loyal ; they trip in forbidden fashion to music as an 
old war horse stirs at the bugle's blast. Some nat- 
ural bent to pride or anger, envy or false ambition, is 
not yet in subjection. This must be exterminated or 
conquered that there may be obedience to the orders 
of the will, the head of the firm., loyal to and com- 
manded by the Spirit of God. 

Such an inner conflict has vexed many people; 
how shall they secure the benefits of salvation for 
the whole man and pass from the bondage of the 
flesh to the freedom of the spirit? They may call 
upon God for help; abundant help will surely be 
given to each inquirer in God's way and time. Some 
souls quickly find deliverance from this bondage of 
the flesh, from their proneness to evil. One is in- 
clined to say that their nature and circumstances are 
favorable for such a work; at any rate, God in his 
sovereignty did the work, we know not why. The 
possibility of entire sanctification at the time of 
justification is not denied. Some people may be 
made perfect in love within a short time after 
regeneration ; as the phrase is, ''the work is cut short 
in righteousness'* ; their struggle is soon over. Where 
this is not the case something like the following 
usually happens in earnest, faithful, growing dis- 
ciples. 

The Human Side. The new life as a seed may be 
in soil favorable or unfavorable. It should grow 
and construct a new spiritual personality out of the 
old soil. There is a human side to this work. Dur- 
ing the days or years since conversion the person has 
been finding out his true condition and need ; being 



192 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

an earnest disciple, he has been making a mighty 
struggle against evil tendencies and has felt deep 
sorrow at grieving the Spirit of God by too many 
falls. If wise, he is using means for self -improve- 
ment and growth in grace. He studies the Word, 
taking in its larger commands and looking for the 
promises which apply to his case; he uses prayer, 
public and private, and other means of grace. He 
engages in various forms of Christian service. He- 
finds that constant practice and effort render re- 
ligious work easier, like any work ; he discovers that 
the ceaseless doing of duty and resisting certain 
troublesome temptations make it easier to do the 
duty and to overcome. Oft-recurring repetition of 
certain thoughts or practices will form a religious 
habit in the same way other habits are formed. He 
is thus perseveringly replacing old bad habits with 
new good habits. Habit is second nature; the re- 
newed soul must get a new second nature for itself 
and its body. Let each young Christian, eager for 
the best inner life, recognize the fact and rejoice in 
it that the supreme choice grows more permanently 
rooted in the being with age and repetition. Many 
subordinate choices confirm it; it is like a central 
tower in a castle built around and inclosed with 
many buttresses and fortifications. After some 
years a very large portion of the soul's activity falls 
into line with this dominant purpose ; such a Chris- 
tian is pushing on toward maturity. Faithfulness 
and watchfulness and avoidance of questionable 
practices and refusal to compromise with evil keep 
perennial sunshine in the soul. Some of this will 



FULL SALVATION 193 

apply to the experience after full salvation equally 
well. The Christian is bringing his body into 
harmony with God's demands gradually; the 
Holy Spirit is working in the believer, killing 
oflf the old man, crucifying the flesh with the 
affections and lusts. The case is fitly represented 
by a soldier just enlisted, a new recruit, and a vet- 
eran. It has to do with one's standing and state. 
There are a quick part and a slow part. One may 
sign the papers and swear allegiance to his country 
quickly; he is tlien a soldier as truly in official stand- 
ing as the oldest member of the army. To become 
a seasoned veteran, skilled and reliable, will require 
time. He must go through a process of discipline 
and training not merely in camp, but also in real 
war. It is true that this is growth on the side of 
maturity, not of purity necessarily; but maturity is 
desirable. Many teach that no growth is possible 
before full salvation. They discourage people from 
doing anything toward Christian attainment by 
practically telling them that they are no better moral- 
ly, no holier, up to the time of inbred sin destruction 
than they were at justification. A sad and vicious 
error we firmly believe this to be. To show that it 
is not the teaching of the best authors on this sub- 
ject, the following is quoted from Love Enthroned, 
by Daniel Steele: 

''Both classes witness to the same truth — depraved 
inclination in the justified soul is not outgrown by 
spiritual development, but killed by the power of the 
Holy Ghost through a specific act of faith. But this 
spiritual development by growth is the necessary 



194 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

preparation for this destruction of inborn sin. The 
power of the Holy Spirit is exerted only through 
faith, and this faith is possible only when we are 
conscious of a need of cleansing from all inward 
tendencies to sin. This consciousness is awakened 
by the increasing clearness of our spiritual percep- 
tions under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. As 
Dr. Tyng says, 'There is no calendar containing the 
length of time necessary for the conversion of the 
sinner' ; so there is no limit in time for this prepara- 
tion for the work of entire sanctification. It may 
be an hour after regeneration, or the soul may be so 
slow in apprehending its privileges in Christ Jesus 
that years and decades may roll by before 'faith 
grasps the blessings she desires.' 

*'We do not deny that incipient believers may, and 
do, in their gradual spiritual unfolding, mortify and 
diminish the remains of sin lingering in them after 
justification. What we affirm is that the complete 
eradication of inbred sin after this period of decay 
is by the direct energy of the Sanctifier, whose inter- 
position is specially invoked. This is his great office 
in the economy of salvation. His glory he will not 
give to another. 'The Lord your God is a jealous 
God.' The Spirit of Truth will not let growth or 
development usurp his function and wear his honors. 
. . . We do not deny that there may be successive 
operations of the Holy Spirit, or baptisms culminat- 
ing in the grand finale — the extinction of sin and the 
fullness of God."i 

John Fletcher says: "If one powerful baptism of 

* Pp. 333-335. 



FULL SALVATION 195 

the Spirit 'seal you unto the day of redemption, and 
cleanse you from all [moral] filthiness/ so much the 
better. If two or more be necessary, the Lord can 
repeat them."^ Rev. A. M. Hills practically con- 
cedes the same in saying: *'The blessing is not 
reached by the growth process, but is received instan- 
taneously, as at Pentecost," by faith, ''though the 
soul may grow gradually into the conditions of 
receiving the blessing."^ Bishop Foster holds that 
all growth in grace after conversion and previous to 
entire sanctification is growth toward entire holi- 
ness. 

During this stage or period the soul is more or less 
painfully aware of its defects, many of them inex- 
cusable; its experience is unsatisfactory. "There is 
often a distressing sense of remaining evil in it." 
"There is an abiding consciousness that a better life 
is possible." There are often "holy yearnings" after 
a righteous outward life, a pure heart, a closer walk 
with God, and for a peace and communion with the 
Saviour that is without interruption. In all these 
exercises of the soul, about which more might be 
said, the Christian is approaching a point where, as 
the tests of life and increasing light come to him, he 
will usually see or is driven to discover some dear 
indulgence or questionable — or possibly sinful — 
practice or pet ambition, which he dislikes to give up 
for God or finds it hardest to abandon. Self in 
thick disguise makes a final stand in some last ditch. 
He must sacrifice this idol too. When the believer 
reaches this point he has gone about as far as his 

^Quoted by Steele, ibid., pp.335, 336. 2 Holiness and Power, p. 366. 



196 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

strength will take him with ordinary prayer and 
watchfulness; and he needs a special enduement 
from above. How long he may have been in coming 
to this conclusion is unknown and variable ; and also 
how easy or how hard and slow work it has been for 
him to convince and satisfy his soul with the prom- 
ises of the Word that God is able and willing to meet 
all his needs and to do for him more than he has 
ever done. He may have reached this point soon 
after conversion or wandered about for years in the 
wilderness of good resolutions and failures — or at 
times with scarce any resolution at all. 

He now beseeches the Lord for real work to be 
done in his soul. He is able to tell the Lord that he 
has tried to meet all the divine claims upon him and 
to overcome indwelling sin ; he has tried to drive out 
evil inclinations and to form right habits and to 
have the Divine Spirit rule in him. He has not quite 
succeeded, though he has made gains. Because of 
his earnest effort he can sincerely and expectantly 
appeal to God for help, otherwise not. The prayer 
of a morally shiftless disciple which is mere words 
plus laziness, perhaps a vociferous laziness, is of no 
avail. ''For let not that man think that he shall re- 
ceive anything of the Lord." But let the diligent 
seeker ''ask in faith, nothing wavering." God does 
not put a premium, upon spiritual indolence. 

If one has not been living carefully and conscien- 
tiously since justification, or has retrograded into a 
backslidden state, what then ? This complicates the 
situation. There are ebbs and flows in the spirit- 
ual tides; sometimes the life is high, sometimes low; 



F'ULL SALVATION 197 

there may be zeal, strictness, earnest striving for a 
while, then laxity, lukewarmness, or worldliness. 
There may be many defects and falls and doubtful 
practices and failures, which "do not wholly break 
up or abrogate the regenerate life." ''The will does 
not go over to unrighteousness." If, however, the 
Christian has fallen away from his calling and 
ceased his striving for righteousness, he must repent, 
reform, and get right with God again before he is 
in a position to receive the fullness of Christ's life, 
or full salvation. 

The true seeker now places himself in the hands 
of God and supplicates his power to enable him to 
abide in Christ continually and to have complete 
victory and dominion over self, the flesh, and the 
world. He beseeches the Lord for purity of heart, 
and that he may actually and wholly ''yield his mem- 
bers servants to righteousness unto holiness." In 
this soul travail the Christian unreservedly and con- 
sciously commits himself to God for treatment and 
healing. The seeker took a step in conversion which 
would in time involve him in entire sanctification, if 
he followed up his attitude or devotion of himself 
to God, but he did not then think about it, perhaps 
did not know it. So it involved his giving money and 
labor to God's cause, or might involve his going as 
a foreign missionary or to the stake as a martyr. He 
here makes explicit what was implicit — God called 
us to holiness — though probably unrecognized, in the 
entire consecration made at conversion and sup- 
posedly lived up to ever since. If he has not main- 
tained this attitude of entire consecration he must 



igS AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

renew it; this he can do far more thoroughly and 
specifically and with more intelligence and detail 
than at first. He can now reaffirm the entire con- 
secration with a larger scope than ever, with a clearer 
vision of God's claims, and a deeper knowledge of 
self and of besetting sins as well as upsetting 
sins, of a hostile world and of the difficulty of 
achieving righteousness, than he had at conversion. 
He doubtless will particularly yield himself to the 
Lord, asking for the eradication of the remainder 
of the sinward tendency in his members, for the 
crucifixion of the affections and lusts. For indwell- 
ing sin which drags him down, he implores God to 
substitute in him the indwelling Christ who lifts and 
holds up. If instructed rightly here he throws him- 
self at the Saviour's feet and waits with patience 
and faith until he receives what God is willing to 
bestow. 

The Divine Side. What then? The divine side 
of this work must now take place. There must be 
a mighty turning to God. The soul hungering after 
righteousness, longing for closer union with Christ, 
and power to do his will continually, cries out, like 
Peter, ''Thou hast the words of eternal life." ''Lord, 
save ; I perish." The divine workman, who has been 
waiting his opportunity, reveals his power in the re- 
newal of the sin-oppressed soul by restoring it to a 
more normal condition, by effecting its more com- 
plete reorganization. The grace of God reaches out 
into this perverted life and makes it obedient to the 
renewed will. The Spirit rules and the flesh obeys. 
The facts lead us to concede that God, having done 



FULL SALVATION 199 

some of this work about the time of the new birth, 
continues it gradually afterward during the believ- 
er's probation to this time through his grace and the 
efforts of the Christian to cooperate with him. The 
individual, left to himself at no point along this way, 
finds that God in answer to prayer is always enter- 
ing his soul, renewing and enlarging this interior 
divine life and extending this work of reformation 
further and further through his whole being. The 
last of it after certain preparation is an instanta- 
neous work. 

At some receptive point here, in some flight of 
faith, the believer suddenly emerges from his strug- 
gle into conscious victory and purity. This is possi- 
ble only by the power of God in the soul through 
faith ; the individual could never compass so great a 
work in his strength alone. This is a great epoch in 
the soul's life, an ineffable moment. The Holy 
Spirit already on the throne of the heart brings all 
departments of the conscious life into subjugation to 
himself. Proneness to evil is taken away; a bias to- 
ward the good is implanted in its stead. All felt in- 
ternal hindrances to doing right, as the person under- 
stands right, and to being good, are taken away, re- 
gardless of the name by which they may be called. 
In the language here used the remaining propensi- 
ties to disobedience — part (a) of inbred sin — and 
any acquired propensities are eradicated from the 
heart. The remainder of indwelling sin, as in the 
seventh chapter of Romans and as referred to in the 
fourth chapter of this book, is driven from the 
heart ; its dominion is abolished by the presence of the 



200 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Spirit of God. *'The deeds of the body'' have been 
'"mortifying" — in the Scripture sense — for lack of 
nourishment for some time; what is dying reaches 
a point at last, like an old tree, when, as Wesley said, 
it is entirely dead. Evil concupiscence is dead. 
Invitations to sin from without knock at the door, 
temptation rings the telephone bell, there is no re- 
sponse from any sin-inclined tempers or lusts within. 
These have been crucified ; proneness to disobedience 
does not inhabit this soul; Christ lives here. It 
should nevertheless be understood that there are 
normal appetites and desires to which temptation 
may surely and legitimately appeal as temptations 
assailed Jesus. And there may be — and probably 
are — abnormal, diseased, or sin-weakened appetites 
and passions to which outward temptation or solici- 
tation may appeal with more force than to innocent 
appetences. But these are more easily and naturally 
controlled by the renewed and empowered will than 
the old excessive affections of the flesh and the lusts. 
One can undoubtedly affirm with Wesley : One thus 
saved is asked to gamble ; there is no leaning in that 
direction. He is asked to gratify selfish ambition in 
the world or in the church, to secure certain emolu- 
ments or fame by illegitimate means, by overstepping 
or trampling upon another's rights or interests, or to 
indulge questionable tastes and pleasures; he feels 
no inclination to do so. An appeal is made to his 
vanity ; pride does not awaken ; or, if so, it is quickly 
choked off. 

In the second place, very much of the damage of 
racial sin in the wide sense — part (b) — is repaired 



FULL SALVATION 201 

by this renovation of the moral character In the 
secondary sense ; still further, it may be asserted that 
this renewing work is extended even into the be- 
liever's original nature or constitution. How far this 
blessed experience penetrates into the being and the 
subconscious life no one can tell. Some of the 
marginal elements of consciousness will pass into 
the focus of the conscious life some time in the fu- 
ture, and will be found right. Christ is formed with- 
in; the heart is full of the divine life. This says 
nothing as to the size of the heart or intelligence; a 
cup may be as full as a barrel. There will be oppor- 
tunity for the future enlargement of the vessel de- 
scribed as a transition of the subconscious into the 
conscious life. 

Again to impress the same truth and to exalt the 
divine side by giving it expression in other words, 
the following is added: ''The great work of the 
Sanctifier, by his powerful and usually instantaneous 
in working, is to rectify the will, poise the passions 
aright, hold in check all innocent and eradicate all 
unholy appetites, and to enthrone the conscience over 
a realm in which no rebel lurks.''^ At a favorable 
moment, in the fullness of time, God's time — if a 
reluctant disciple interposes no obstacles — this pro- 
gressive divine life, the triumphal progress of the 
Holy Spirit within, reaches the boundaries of the 
heart. Represent, as in a figure, the whole con- 
scious life of the Christian by a sphere with the will 
at the center; then one may fittingly conceive of 
sanctification as a divine work in the soul radiating 

^Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers, p. 134. 



202 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

from the center to the circumference of the sphere 
of consciousness; when it reaches the circumference 
it is entire or whole. All passions and lusts become 
obedient to the human will which has already chosen 
to be at one with God and has been empowered of 
God to have dominion throughout this whole human 
personality. This life is like a stream which was 
flowing in the center of the channel, and now has 
risen to a flood and filled the banks to the brim. Its 
mighty current carries away all the old life before 
it; the "old man" is drowned and washed down- 
stream. The entirety or completeness, which is a 
subjective affair, consists in its reaching to the 
boundaries of the believer's conscious life; he is 
sensible of nothing within pulling him into a trans- 
gression of a known law of God in any way. Love 
is in a sense perfect or all-inclusive when it 
rules all the life and embraces all people, as 
the Father's love is perfect or all-inclusive be- 
cause it encircles all men, friends and foes, 
as described in Matt. 5. 44-48. Love is full- 
grown or complete to a certain limit when it has 
expelled its opponents, or all opposite affections, 
from the heart; when it pervades the whole con- 
scious life and has in a large measure reorganized 
character in the secondary sense around itself as the 
dominating principle. The image of the Saviour is 
being formed in the consecrated soul throughout the 
Christian's career, and at this period more of the 
definite outline of his lineaments has become visible. 
God is working to restore perfectly his moral image 
in man. It has become, on the whole, easier to do 



FULL SALVATION 203 

right than wrong, at least at most points and times. 
The soul sings: 

** He breaks the power of canceled sin, 
He sets the prisoner free; 
His blood can make the foulest clean; 
His blood availed for me." 

The fully saved soul is not obliged to sing as describ- 
ing its own condition, 

" Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 
Prone to leave the God I love/* 

It delights itself with words like these : 

** Now shall my feet no longer rove, 
Rooted and fixed in God." 

The joy is deep and abiding; the peace passes all 
understanding. The Christian almost feels as if he 
had a taste of heaven as he sings, 

" There I shall bathe my weary soul 
In seas of endless rest. 
And not a wave of trouble roll 
Across my peaceful breast." 

The human consciousness, the Holy Spirit, and the 
written Word bear witness to the presence of this 
life more abundant. 

There are and have been holy souls on earth who 
have had such an experience. Some can tell the day 
and the hour precisely when this deliverance came ; 
others may scarcely be able to tell by the clock when 
they entered upon this life or just the manner in 
which it came; but they know at the present hour 
that they are now abiding in Christ and have the rest 



204 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of faith. That is blessed and should be satisfactory. 
Hallelujah ! "Now unto him that is able to do ex- 
ceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, 
according to the power that worketh in us, unto him 
be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all 
ages, world without end. Amen'* (Eph. 3. 20, 21). 
For some concrete cases, all that space permits, the 
reader is referred to the paragraph on mysticism in 
the tenth chapter. Along with the above it should 
be remembered that entire sanctification is not 
synonymous with completed or ended sanctification ; 
it is not a finality in Christian experience with no 
growth beyond. 

The point, or the ineffable moment, has been ex- 
alted to a rather high pinnacle by most advocates of 
this life; its logical value in controversy may be 
greater than its practical value in men's everyday 
experience. It was necessary and helpful to Wesley, 
who had to fight for his doctrine every inch of the 
ground against disputers; it is thus useful to-day, 
but not so much needed. Possibly this may be true, 
that in accounts of this experience in the future, 
written by those who see not '4n a mirror darkly," a 
full salvation period will come in time to take the 
place in popular thought of this moment, or point 
of blessing. For usually hours and days both before 
and after this ineffable moment belong properly to 
this stage of experience. In the same way it would 
be convenient to speak of a regeneration period. 
This may do away with needless refinement and 
theologizing and bring us nearer the biological view, 
nearer to real life. 



FULL SALVATION 205 

To complete this account a brief paragraph is 
necessary on the witness of the Spirit; another on 
the changes or excellences not involved in full salva- 
tion, or, what the sanctified man is not ; still another 
on the undefinable part of the w^ork and the chasm 
between intellect and emotions. The treatment of 
these points must be deferred to the eighth chapter. 
The following chapter is occupied with three other 
ways of describing the entrance upon this stage of 
Christian experience : the description under the form 
of doing and being; from the standpoint of evolu- 
tion ; and the unio mystica, or divine union. These 
simply tell in another way, for confirmation and 
breadth of view, what has already been told under 
the description of the supreme choice, permeating 
and reducing to harmony with itself the entire con- 
scious being. Three topics of vital interest may be 
conveniently noticed here. 

THE DIFFERENTIATING POINT 

The great differentiating point, the best and most 
useful line of demarcation between the experience 
of full salvation and what goes before, as repre- 
sented, is not, in the author's judgment, the removal 
of all inbred sin. Nor is it the important negative 
feature of the work, the removal or destruction of 
the remaining innate and acquired sinward ten- 
dency. The reasons for this are set forth in the 
fourth chapter in the paragraphs showing that some 
inbred sin may be removed in regeneration, and 
elucidating acquired depravity ; and also in the third 
chapter in the objections to our knowledge of its 



2o6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

entire destruction from the being. It is our convic- 
tion that the positive side is v^orth more and should 
be made more prominent than the negative side. 
What is the differentiating point then? While all 
the components of this experience will be stated 
tersely further on, here v^e say, it is a heart full of 
love, that will stay full. With the supreme choice 
right, the divine love filling the whole soul to its 
conscious limits and the permanence of this state 
mark largely the entireness of sanctification. The 
emotional outburst or concomitant of this experi- 
ence will be given a place in a paragraph in the 
eighth chapter. The point to emphasize before con- 
gregations and seekers — with the complete presenta- 
tion of the subject, negative and positive — is the 
fullness of the new life, the life more abundant, as 
it reaches the circumference of the conscious life. 
John Wesley emphatically and repeatedly put the 
emphasis on this point; it was his refuge when 
nearly discomfited in the hottest controversy. 
The fully saved man feels only love to all; 
he is "established," made complete in Christ, 
abiding in him without interruption daily. "Look 
at it again; survey it on every side, and that 
with the closest attention; in one view it is 
purity of intention, dedicating all the life to God. 
It is the giving God all our heart ; it is one desire and 
design ruling all our tempers. It is the devoting not 
a part, but all, of our soul, body, and substance to 
God. In another view, it is all the mind that was 
in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked. It is 
the circumcision of the heart from all filthiness, all 



FULL SALVATION 207 

inward as well as outward pollution. It is the re- 
newal of the heart in the whole image of God, the 
full likeness of Him that created it. In yet another, 
it is the loving God with all our heart, and our neigh- 
bor as ourselves. . . . Let this Christian perfec- 
tion appear in its own shape, and who will fight 
against it?"^ 

The reader should guard against a possible mis- 
understanding here. Merely a temporary or super- 
ficial joy or emotional fullness or excitement is not 
what is meant in these lines. The heart is full of joy 
often, and of the right purpose always, at conver- 
sion; it may be full again for a few hours or days 
during a religious meeting; some speak wisely of a 
fellowship blessing. This is not what is here re- 
ferred to as the striking and essential characteristic 
of this experience. It is rather a heart full of abid- 
ing and victorious love, deep-seated in the hum.an 
will after the subsidence of any special emotional 
excitement. It is a heart known by careful examina- 
tion and actual tests in real life to be free from in- 
clination away from God and to be filled with a 
rational love for God and men. The supreme pur- 
pose has with a struggle usually, or without, if so it 
be, conquered enemies in the heart and has full sway 
and rest from interior foes. The heart remains 
fixed in God for some time at least, always till some 
laxity or slip is allowed in life, and clings to Christ 
independent of circumstances or physical hindrances 
or untoward events and persecutions. 

This love, no passive or sentimental affair, mani- 

1 Wesley, Plain Account, pp. 6i, 62. 



2o8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

fests itself in labor and gifts and sacrifice, "not 
counting its life dear unto itself." It is so powerful 
and expulsive of its opposite that hate, the head- 
strong nature opposing God, strife, self-seeking, 
murmuring, and fault-finding are excluded from the 
heart and speech. Religious leaders do well to lay- 
more stress on the ethical fullness than the emotional 
fullness. This is the side, it seems, to be made 
prominent. ^Tor purity is a mere negative excel- 
lence, and might be conceived of as existing without 
activity. Indeed, a mere negative sinlessness has 
sometimes been the aim of mistaken spiritual effort. 
But holiness implies the most intense mental and 
bodily activity of which we are capable. For it is 
the employment of all our powers and opportunities 
to advance God's purposes ; and this implies the use 
of our intelligence to learn how best to do his work, 
and the bodily effort which his work requires. And, 
in order to keep before us the essentially positive 
nature of holiness, the word is never used [in the 
Bible] to denote simple victory over sin."^ "This 
complete and abiding victory over all sin in thought, 
word, or deed marks, I venture to believe, a stage 
of the Christian life higher than justification and 
sufficiently definite to be an object of thought and 
faith. The discovery that by faith Jesus saves us 
now by his power from all sin has been an era in the 
spiritual life of thousands. It may be suitably 
called full salvation, or, as we look at its positive 
side, entire sanctification."^ 



^Beet, Holiness as Understood by the Writers of the Bible, p. 51. 
2 Ibid., p. 69. 



FULL SALVATION 209 

Ask men to seek an experience in which all in- 
bred sin is removed, and they are submerged in a 
fog; they will fail to understand, will object and dis- 
pute about heredity endlessly, till all religious 
impulse is dissipated by argument. Or they will be 
as much puzzled as over the union of soul and body. 
One of these questions is as abstruse and nearly 
as inappropriate as the other to the seeker after a 
closer walk with God. Ask men to seek a state of 
heart and life w^here love to God and man reigns 
supreme, where backbiting or gossip, injustice, over- 
reaching, respect of persons, and the like, are absent 
from the heart and outward conduct, and nearly 
every self-respecting sinner knows without argument 
that he ought to seek such a life. Even many Sun- 
day school sinners and some formal and sermon- 
saturated church members also know it. Conscience 
silences the objector and is on the side of the Chris- 
tian worker. All Christians can raise no good ob- 
jection against that kind of living. They know and 
feel that all sinful tempers and all drawing toward 
disobedience ought to be out of their hearts. There 
is no Scripture for the destruction of all inbred sin 
at a particular instant in one's life, including all 
effects of racial sin and the infirmities caused by 
it. There is much Scripture beseeching or command- 
ing one to have ^'the mind of Christ" and perfect 
love, and to ''walk as he walked," and promising the 
''fullness of God," the "life more abundant," and the 
freedom with which "the Son therefore shall make 
you. free." With pardon an accomplished fact, 
with the negative work done, with some skill or 



210 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

proficiency gained in the art of holy Hving and in 
Christian work, full salvation is to be whole-hearted, 
out and out, all the time, on fire for God and right- 
eousness, and overflowing with kindness and zeal 
and good works. It is a salvation powerful enough 
to kindle the fire in others and to spread the king- 
dom of God in the world. 

^'But there is another kind of fullness of the Spirit 
which must imply entire sanctification — the perma- 
nent gracious presence in the soul of the Holy 
Spirit, in his fullness, not as an extraordinary gift, 
but as a person having the right of way through 
soul and body, having the keys to even the inmost 
rooms, illuminating every closet and pervading every 
crevice of the nature, filling the entire being with 
holy love. This we may call the ethical fullness, or 
fullness of righteousness, to distinguish it from the 
ecstatic and the charismatic fullness. 'Blessed are 
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : 
for they shall be filled.' "i 

The Holy Spirit comes to purify, fill, possess, and 
inhabit the soul utterly surrendered to him. Having 
come he would abide; and full salvation is that 
state which includes all the Holy Spirit is and does 
in the soul every day of subsequent life, unless the 
Christian grieves him away. It is more than one act. 
This coincides with Dr. D. W. C. Huntington's 
view of sanctification. The holy life implies the 
presence in us of the ''Holy Spirit revealing Christ 
in us and with us as our friend, companion, and ex- 
ample." This life is continually increasing in scope 

1 Daniel Steele, A Defense of Christian Perfection, p. no. 



FULL SALVATION 211 

and power; its possessor is becoming ^'rooted and 
grounded" in love more deeply as long as he remains 
in this state. This life consists essentially in abiding 
in Christ without interruption and in body and spirit 
continuously manifesting his life and glorifying him. 
On the biological view the higher Christian life is 
not a narrow experience the same for everybody, 
but a rich, varied, and luxuriant life adapted to each 
personality. It conserves and enlarges innocent, 
natural faculties and powers, strengthens sin- 
weakened ability, disposition, and heavenly aspira- 
tions according to need, and banishes sinful pro- 
clivities. The divine incoming continues and ex- 
tends its beneficent work into the constitution and 
being beyond what was the limit of conscious life 
at the time of the first reception of full salvation. 

It is always well to keep in mind the difference 
between an act of the will and the nature of the will. 
The will means the whole mind or soul viewed 
as choosing, determining; the whole of the same soul 
acting in the capacity of knowing is called intellect. 
No one should be misled by the term "faculty," as 
if the soul were divided into separate compartments. 
Love, or the determination of the will to please 
God, is the act of the will. This act, oft repeated and 
confirmed by many subordinate decisions and prac- 
tices for days and years, gets so strong that it is 
perfect love or inclination; it is an acquired holy 
state; it is so strong and so absorbs the energies of 
the heart that it overrules and destroys the inherited 
nature of the will, the inclination to displease God 
born in the person, imbibed with mother's milk. This 



212 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

is habit in the will. The higher brain centers can 
estabHsh their mode of functioning so completely as 
effectually to inhibit the old channels of nerve energy 
and efface old modes of functioning and the associa- 
tions of lower centers, those which control more 
directly the activities of appetite and desire. The 
choice permanently maintained and acquired, holy 
habits have by the aid of the Holy Spirit mastered 
and expelled the old sin-inclined habits and in- 
grained aptitude of the will for lawlessness. A clari- 
fied intellectual state or better knowledge of God and 
a reorganized emotional life have helped. Further- 
more, there is no a priori reason why acts of the will 
should not in time overcome the old nature of the 
will, the natural bent. There are physical facts 
enough to show that a long-continued series of acts 
of the will in one direction does change its nature or 
inclination; the action may change it from good to 
bad, or with the help of the Spirit from bad to good. 
It is consequently entirely rational to hold that a 
supreme choice long continued, woven into the warp 
and woof of life by many subordinate confirmations, 
strengthened by the 'Tower that makes for right- 
eousness," should destroy the opposite tendency 
completely, namely, the inherited or acquired in- 
clination to oppose God. "Habit second nature! 
habit is ten times nature!'' exclaimed an old war- 
rior. Cultivate the habit of holiness, or the recogni- 
tion of God's ownership. 

The question may arise as to how to tell when 
love is perfect or full salvation is attained. We 
believe it is possible for a person to know Vv^hen love 



FULL SALVATION 213 

IS perfect or all-inclusive and embraces friends and 
foes. This is a subjective affair, and is here pre- 
sented only on its human side. One may feel sure of 
the eradication or suppression of anger or pride 
when he has reached a point after which for a 
certain period he has felt none. He may know 
whether he has taken the name of God in vain for 
five years or not; he can know from consciousness 
whether he wanted to swear or not, felt like it, and 
wished he could. He may know the same about 
stealing or lying and affirm the same without fanat- 
icism. Now extend this self-examination to all sin- 
ful tempers, forms of hatred, and concupiscence, to 
wrong ambitions, love of vainglory, and all the 
works of the flesh (Gal. 5.19-21), especially the be- 
setting sin or the favorite evil practice, till one feels 
sure there is none of this in him clear to the circum- 
ference of his conscious life. Let one ascertain also 
if he has the fruit of the Spirit. Add to this that 
God in answer to believing prayer, which is based 
on the divine promises, has done this, has abolished 
the power of sin in the flesh and filled the soul with a 
holy, not hateful or world-loving, spirit; then one 
can say sanctification is entire or whole; it reaches 
throughout his conscious life. God has done the 
work, and done it instantaneously. It may not be 
necessary to go through a long list of evils as above ; 
there is usually some last sinful tendency or leaning 
that makes the trouble, and when that is gone the 
rest are out of the way. Wesley affirmed this view 
again and again, and gave a caution with it, referring 
to the justified period, so that no one would be too 



214 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

hasty. He says that because you feel no anger or 
pride, etc., therefore you say you have none ; wait a 
while ; it may be only sleeping and not dead. If after 
a time one still feels only love, he may say sinful 
tempers are dead. Daniel Steele expresses the same 
thought in his experience : "It would not be wise for 
me to assert that all sinful anger — there is a right- 
eous anger — is taken away till I have passed through 
a college rebellion, or something equally provoking. 
If sin consists only in active energies, I am not 
conscious of such dwelling in me. If sin consists in 
a state, as some with truth assert when they describe 
original sin, I infer that I am not in such a state, 
from the absence of sinful energies flowing there- 
from, and more especially from the indwelling of 
the Holy Spirit. This has been accompanied with 
such a feeling of inward cleanness that I doubt not 
that the Purifier has taken up his abode in the tem- 
ple of my heart.'' ^ It is very encouraging to know 
that in his life the sinful anger did not arise, and his 
assurance and testimony were not in after years 
overthrown by experience. Of course, a seeker may 
testify in meeting that he has the assurance that he 
has received the baptism with the Spirit without 
waiting days before saying anything about it. And 
he should afterward bring his life up to his testi- 
mony in that community or admit his mistake and 
seek the fullness till received without a doubt and 
able to stand the wear and tear of daily life, wash 
days and all the days. 

1 Love Enthroned, pp. 283, 284. 



CHAPTER VII 
Full Salvation : Other Ways of Describing 

doing and being 

The fundamental distinction between doing and 
being furnishes another way of looking at and de- 
scribing this experience; it also gives a solid basis 
for it. One may say being is the fountain, doing is 
the stream. "What shall I do that I may inherit 
eternal life?'' was the young man's question. It is 
the question of the lawyer to whom the parable of 
the good Samaritan was given; likewise of the 
people who came to John the Baptist. Saul of Tar- 
sus asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" 
The Philippian jailer in turn said to Saul, "What 
must I do to be saved?" This is the great world 
question asked by heathen beggars and philosophers, 
by moralists and deists, and by all classes of people 
in Christian lands. None of these people ask, "What 
must I be to be saved ?" Is not this a fundamental 
fact of great significance? Why do they not ask it? 
Is it not because man did something wrong when he 
first sinned, and he wants to do something to make it 
right? Is not this natural religion? Man makes 
offerings to God or gods to get back into favor, to 
appease the Deity. Sinning begins with an act of 
will; it is a superficial view that an act of man's 
will can at once terminate sin and abolish all its 
consequences. "What must I do to be saved?" is 

2X5 



2i6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the question about salvation as the heathen or un- 
saved man conceives it. ^'What must I be to be^ 
saved?" is the question about salvation as Christ 
conceives it, and saved men, having grown into 
Christ's views. God said, ^^This is my beloved Son, 
in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3. 17) ; not in 
his outward deeds merely, but also in his being. 
Jesus said, ''I and my Father are one" (John 10. 30), 
and therefore he could say, "I do always those things 
that please him" (John 8. 29). The latter was the 
outgrowth of the former. Doing is never omitted, 
but is more perfect and continuous and easier 
when the being is right. ''What must I be to be 
saved?" as a practical question comes later in the 
Christian life, and is as fundamental and neces- 
sary as the first, ''What must I do?" and 
more mystical. It will surely come to those 
who keep drawing near to God after regenera- 
tion, and who thus come to realize the ineff ectualness 
of doing, or legalism. The damage sin has wrought 
in men is deeper than they know till they set about 
repairing that damage in themselves in dead earnest. 
Conversion is the beginning of this work. If the 
Christian worker would hasten growth into Christ- 
likeness he should crowd converts toward keeping 
the law and a holy life. So Wesley said, "Are you 
groaning after it?" One will thus more quickly find 
the obstacles in himself that need removing and feel 
the need of divine help. Here is a fact deep in 
human nature on which all can build. Here one 
sees clearly a basis for a further work of God in 
the soul after justification and the beginning of re- 



FULL SALVATION 217 

geneiation, which is the new birth, and a reason for 
it. This is a proper distinction, and reHgious 
teachers need not becloud it with unnecessary acces- 
sories. We beHeve it is possible to mark the differ- 
ence between the new birth and further work in the 
soul as clearly as that between doing and being. One 
may by study learn to trace God's steps and his 
methods in carrying on his work in sanctification or 
in reforming the justified soul, creating his image 
therein. There is a step in redemption which con- 
cerns the doing ; it is salvation chiefly in the will or 
ego; after a surrender and the exercise of faith in 
a Saviour justification and regeneration are ex- 
perienced and sanctification is begun. Another step 
in redemption concerns the being ; it is the exclusion 
of every rebellious spirit from the being, as far as 
consciousness penetrates, possibly farther. This is 
full salvation. If the servant of God lives longer 
on earth, there are other steps and uplifts, and other 
milestones of progress passed. Then at last the 
whole man, body, soul, and spirit, is made wholly 
right, sound, perfect, and spiritual. This is glorifi- 
cation. All personal and racial sin and their effects 
of every kind, with all spiritual dullness of the mind 
and infirmities and defects of the body, are gone 
forever. This is completed redemption, or the com- 
plete restoration to the image of God. 

PERFECT LOVE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF EVOLUTION 

The same experience is valid and obligatory upon 
all, though they may not accept the theological 
dogma of original sin or the traditional theory of 



2i8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the origin or fall of man. The question of the ori- 
gin of the body of man or of the specific causes of 
the dislocation or the dualism of his being need not 
separate altogether those who would strive for per- 
sonal righteousness now and promote social right- 
eousness. Neither the Bible nor nature gives us yet 
clear and detailed knowledge as to how the body of 
man was produced or how long it was in the making. 
A theory of theistic evolution is acceptable and dear 
to many. If held with a belief in a personal God 
who has guided the process of evolution, it is com- 
patible with high Christian attainments. Moreover, 
the view of a holy life already advocated and of 
the attainment of inner peace will even hold true 
for the agnostic and the denier of immortality, if 
he wishes the best moral and mental and physical 
life for himself and his species while he stays on 
this planet. For those who hold some form of 
the development theory, the doctrine of full salva- 
tion may be set forth in appropriate terms and 
in language familiar or consonant with their modes 
of viewing the universe. This life, or the attain- 
ment of a certain ideal or moral excellence, is possi- 
ble and necessary for them. They need not and 
should not consider themselves debarred from the 
approach to the best inner and outer life if they 
will accept and imitate the Christ, the perfect man, 
in his spirit and life, omitting for the moment, if it 
seems needful to them, all speculative theories con- 
cerning him. Only a hint as to the method and 
direction of such exposition of perfect love is possi- 
ble here. True evolution does not profess to ex- 



FULL SALVATION 219 

plain the origin of ^'things'' or of life; at least it has 
never explained the origin of life. It tries to ex- 
plain the process by which, with certain forces and 
materials given, certain results were reached, namely, 
the present condition of the earth, of living crea- 
tures, and of man and man in society. This view 
ought to lead its adherents to believe and expect that 
the great life process of nature would be carried 
further, and that some higher moral perfection of 
man is yet attainable for them. That this line of 
thought is esteemed of great importance and held 
dear by many may be seen from the following quota- 
tion: *'Even if the development theory were false, 
its economical value in enabling the mind to grasp 
vast masses of vital facts into a unity, as the sim- 
plest way of thinking the universe, demands that it 
be taught with intensity and devotion. Cowardice, 
stupidity, and laziness are the only true causes of 
our colossal failure to rise to this new opportunity. 
The waste ineffable is most pathetic, when we real- 
ize that here is a new basis of teaching practical 
morality, the highest aim of all education, and that 
springs of enthusiasm, the ethical impulsions of 
deep religious sentiments, are lost."^ 

Most will agree, whether holding to any form of 
evolution or not, that our ancestors sixty centuries 
or more back were barbarians or savages. Traits 
of these primitive people and even of the animal still 
cling to us. Ingrained sin or depravity may be well 
described in terms of the animal life which holds 
sway over the spiritual life. "The minding of the 

^ G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 550. 



220 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

flesh is death; but the minding of the spirit is life 
and peace." "That is not first which is spiritual, but 
that which is natural/' or material ; ^'afterward that 
which is spiritual." "The first man is of the earth, 
earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." 
"The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for 
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
it be." "So then they that are in the flesh cannot 
please God." They that have too much of the animal 
aborigines and of animal appetite and instinct still 
ruling cannot please or obey Absolute Reason ; they 
cannot till they are free from this dominion of the 
lower. They cannot satisfy collective finite reason 
and conscience, the best moral judgment of man- 
kind, that they are doing the best possible to man, 
till the animal propensities are subjugated. This is 
the old animal life which has not been subdued by 
reason or conquered by the Spirit. As certain physi- 
cal organs still remain in man which are of little use 
to him, like the nictitating membrane of the eye, the 
appendix vermiformis, and muscles for moving the 
ear, so part of the old beastly life and savage life 
is prominent in his mental and moral constitution. 
Animal appetites, desires, and passions abound ; de- 
generates are abundant in contact with the highest 
civilization ; reversion to type is common to man and 
is a very good term for backsliding. The dog, if left 
to itself to run wild, reverts to a wolflike animal 
from which it was derived. Old instincts, vagrant 
and predatory instincts, are too strong for many 
men; a vagrant or thievish life is the result. Self- 
preservation, acquisition of property, a spirit of 



FULL SALVATION 221 

looking out for number one, characterize many men. 
Atrocious crimes, class as well as tribal hatreds, and 
wars innumerable have occupied most of the energy 
of man nearly to the present time. This is life in the 
way of the *'old man," primitive life, which long 
obtained in this world and is still common in some 
continents and islands of the sea. Hatred, jealousy, 
war, and works of the flesh are common among 
us. The question of the origin of these undesirable 
and nonsocial traits is not so important or practical 
for the individual as the question, Can I get rid of 
these qualities, and how and when may I get rid of 
them? The '^struggle for life" was prominent lower 
down in the scale; the ^'struggle for the life of 
others" is prominent now in man's world. This 
great burden from past millenniums of lawlessness 
may be a worse weight upon man's shoulders than 
the inbred sin of theology. 

The Divine Side. On this view man needs a great 
Saviour ; one is provided, not the product of ''cosmic 
evolution" merely, though his body had its roots in 
the past, was implicated in nature, and shows the 
possibility of the natural for being the bearer of the 
spiritual. But he is the cause of more evolution, 
''the firstborn among many brethren." One man 
lived through a human life without yielding to ani- 
mal impulses and instincts unlawfully. Reason al- 
ways ruled. His personality can make reason rule 
in us. It is only a question of yielding to him, of 
personal contact through prayer and contemplation 
and obedience and then personal transformation. 
The evolutionary view can describe the disease and 



222 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the ruin well ; it has yet no remedy to offer ; it finds 
no higher man or more perfect friend than the 
Messiah of revelation, the Redeemer of the world. 
The divine side of this work is the same whether the 
subject holds one theory or another of the origin of 
man. ''But as many as received him, to them gave 
he power" (or the privilege) ''to become the sons of 
God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 
I. 12). The experience of perfect love as already 
described need not be repeated here. The human 
side, or co-work with God before and after full 
salvation, has been beautifully portrayed in forms of 
thought and in language familiar to biologists by 
Henry Drummond. 

The lower side, the animal side of human life, can 
be learned by studies into physical nature; to get 
the spiritual side the scientific thinker must bow to 
Christ. In all his research and in all nature he finds 
"none other name under heaven given among men, 
whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4. 12). Here 
the traditionalist and the ardent disciple of develop- 
ment must agree. Why will not the natural philos- 
opher or the agnostic accept heartily and fully 
along with the rest of the life and movement of the 
world which he studies, and perchance admires, this 
highest spiritual nature, the perfect man, the flower 
of humanity and more, and strive to realize the same 
character and constitution within himself and his 
community ? 

Certain characteristic methods of describing the 
"struggle for life" will apply well to the struggle of 
the soul eager for the highest spiritual life. "Mor- 



FULL SALVATION 223 

tify the deeds of the body," kill them, slay them, 
is the idea. In physiology one learns that the 
organ which is little used gets little nutrition; it 
will then atrophy and die. Stop feeding pride, 
anger, covetousness, lust; compel them to die for 
lack of food and exercise. Evolution knows that 
mice confined in a cave for a few generations lose 
their eyes. It tries to trace the growth of sight from 
ability to distinguish merely darkness and light to 
ability to make out a blurred image, then to see 
objects clearly. So the Christian is trying to develop 
a sense of spiritual insight, or powers capable of 
appreciating spiritual values. There are cataclysms 
and upheavals in nature ; the process is not all grad- 
ual, smooth, and slow ; scientific thinkers should not 
object to revolutions and uplifts through grace in the 
moral and spiritual life of believers. Evolution is 
a way of construing earth and man; with the higher 
life of man only are we concerned here. According 
to the inclination of the thinker this life, the higher 
life, may be described more or less in terms of the 
function of body and brain, of activity of thought 
and feeling ; it need not be so much limited to theo- 
logical terms as in this book. Christ can interpret this 
divine life in terms of every occupation and every 
field of thought, and address to each person para- 
bles so clear and perfect that he will hear the gospel 
in the language in which he was born or in which he 
plies his daily task. When the positivist evolves his 
ethics, as he must, he of necessity must affirm, and 
does affirm, ''Strive for peace of conscience, inner 
peace, while you devote yourself to the welfare of 



224 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

humanity." This is his highest good, the *'god of 
our Hfe.'' He has nothing better to ofifer. This 
inner peace, unobstructed reign of righteousness, is 
precisely what we insist on and have tried to de- 
scribe. He who is "the way, the truth, and the Hfe" 
is the only one who can open the way to this peace 
for every soul. 

Many maxims and ethical impulsions are at hand 
from this field of modern knowledge. Improve the 
therapeutic power of thought; always follow con- 
viction of duty or awakened emotion with the proper 
action. Get into such a state that reaction toward 
ideas of righteousness and holiness, toward sin and 
wrongs in society, will be natural, quick, and vigor- 
ous as in Jesus. Cultivate this reaction till it is 
spontaneous and habitual. The thorough and persist- 
ent student of law or medicine wears brain paths 
for easy passage of certain ideas by repeatedly con- 
necting certain principles, statutes, and decisions to- 
gether, or certain symptoms and diseases. The mind 
of an Edison is schooled to send flying back and 
forth the shuttles of thought bearing conductors, 
insulators, transmitters, positive and negative poles, 
incandescent and noncombustible substances, vibrat- 
ing substances, undulatory and commuted currents, 
and all the various manifestations of the wizard 
force and the machinery and appliances for control- 
ling it. It takes time to break out and settle these 
roads through brain tissue. The Christian should 
likewise develop or bring to a high state of cultiva- 
tion a mind alert for the truth regarding God, spirit- 
ual beings, and character, and all the moral relations 



FULL SALVATION 225 

of man to man in the whole range of human activity 
both in the industrial world and in all other depart- 
ments of life. He must think on these things; 
cultivate brain paths so that he quickly knows 
the applications of the law of love to his situation 
in life and to corporations in dealings with each 
other, with individuals, and with the public. It 
is not enough to have a correct system of 
ethics; he must bring into existence a sensitive as 
well as discerning conscience and a set of ethical 
emotions quick to respond to the call of truth and 
justice, and ready to abhor the great outrage of 
innocence and purity and right and the trivial moral 
failure. It seems that God has expressly set apart 
one seventh of the time for this sort of work, for 
merciful acts and the gaining of inspiration to pur- 
sue this ^'straight and narrow way." It will also be 
necessary to put the principles learned in practice the 
other six sevenths of the time. 

If utilitarian or evolutionary ethics wishes to hold, 
as it often does, that certain of the fundamental 
principles of righteousness and truth are in the con- 
stitution of man and are voiced in conscience, the 
theist will agree with him. If the former urges the 
necessity of living at peace with the best ideal one 
can get, the best that has been actualized in the race, 
the Christian will agree. If the Christian theist goes 
further and says that these principles, ideals, and 
ends of reason are not only in the constitution of 
man but in Deity and in the universe, and have 
eternal and universal validity, and the utilitarian or 
agnostic does not wish to affirm so much, that need 



226 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

not overthrow their agreement on the truths held 
in common. The Christian perceives among the 
organs, capacities, and conditions inherited from the 
past, besides that which is innocent and may be 
normal and may not, a perverse bent which would 
not have been inherited, had there been only natural- 
ness, reasonableness, and perfect righteousness in 
the human ancestry. The contention of sound the- 
ology is that man inherits in a measure what the 
higher animals do from each other, the physical 
nature including some mind, though man inherits 
more reason than instinct ; and that he also inherits 
something from sinning ancestors which animals do 
not inherit from their animal progenitors, which had 
no sin, being nonmoral creatures. If the evolutionist 
cannot perceive this, he must, nevertheless, recognize 
the lawlessness and the suffering in mankind and 
should work as earnestly for their extermination 
from himself and his community. Evolution insists 
on the solidarity of the race; like the Bible view of 
sinning, it is a view ^Visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy 
unto thousands of them that love me," and keep my 
laws manifested in nature and in the spiritual nature 
of man. It may call this fortunate or unfortunate ad- 
justment, or harmony with environment or the lack 
of it. A shallow theology which would treat each 
person as an isolated and independent individual, 
and start each one off without any evil effects from 
the sins of ancestors, is not so true to nature. The 
view of the gradual development of living forms 



FULL SALVATION 227 

from lower ones, as held by reverent theists, points 
the way to more progress; physical man seems to 
have a body so well adapted to its purpose that no 
higher animal need be expected. The development 
of spirit is the next step. This, as we have inter- 
preted it^ means oneness with Christ on the part of 
the individual and the resulting social harmony. 
Evolution worthy of the name points toward a higher 
state or consummation in which individuals and the 
social organism attain that form of life exhibited by 
the ideal man, centuries ago, in which all faculties 
shall be at their best. This will be none other than 
the kingdom of heaven. 

Philosophy teaches something of these truths, and 
educated men to-day who hold aloof from organized 
Christianity should help to incarnate them into life. 
''The way to self-realization is through self-renun- 
ciation — that is, through renunciation of that 
natural and immediate life of the self in which it 
is opposed to the not-self."^ Every step in the 
spiritual life ''is won by a break with the immediate 
or natural self." "The individual must die to the 
isolated life — that is, a life for and in himself, a 
life in which the immediate satisfaction of desire 
as his desire is an end in itself — in order that he 
may live the spiritual life, the universal life which 
really belongs to him as a spiritual or self-con- 
scious being."2 The same teaching is in the words of 
Jesus : "For whosoever will save his life shall lose 
it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall 
find it" (Matt. 16. 25). "More life and fuller, that 

*E. Caird, Hegel, p, 211. ^Ihid., p. 213. 



228 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

we want ;" but it comes only through sacrifice. "For 
it is only in breaking down the boundary that sepa- 
rates our life from the life of others that we can at 
the same time break down the boundary which pre- 
vents their life from becoming ours. Saint Paul's 
saying, 'All things are yours, for ye are God's/ ex- 
presses the true conditions on which alone the limits 
of the individual life can be removed — namely, that 
it should cease to will itself except through the whole 
of which it is a part.''^ 

that tremendous emphasis and publicity could be 
given to this idea, that the social unity and harmony 
so eagerly sought to-day cannot be invented, dis- 
covered, or produced until the separate units or mem- 
bers of the community or nation have unity each in 
his own nature ! They can have this only by becom- 
ing one with the Christ, who is per feet reasonableness 
and love in human manifestation. There is no other 
life or center around which each can organize his 
individual life into a unity. No principle but love 
can meet the demand. No action will suffice except 
perfect obedience always to the highest reason; no 
principle is adequate other than Christ's, or the great 
purpose to fulfill the will of God in conduct ; and to 
be that fundamentally right being from which right 
conduct naturally flows. There is no other center 
around which individuals and classes and nations 
can be organized than the one person, the Son of 
God. A collection of haphazard beings, with dis- 
torted and chaotic natures, an unsatisfactory jumble 
of ill-associated characteristics and contradictory 

1 E. Caird, Hegel, p. 215. 



FULL SALVATION 229 

qualities from the past, like the natural man, blurred 
in moral knowledge and sensibility, making discord 
of the moral note, seeking "things" as their real 
good, can never be brought into, legislated into, or 
reach the harmony of a social organism. There is no 
definite, stable, orderly, and unselfish being to har- 
monize into a system with others ; all are disorderly 
in the inner man, wretched on account of interior 
conflicts between warring impulses and lusts, and 
consequently capricious and arbitrary, greedy or 
covetous, thievish or quarrelsome in the outer con- 
duct. Bring unity, peace, and love to the soul, then it 
is ready to maintain a right bearing toward others ; 
let perfect abiding in Christ be the status of each, let 
love be perfect, expelling all opposite tendency from 
the former life, and there are in the world beings 
who can be, under a good Spirit, organized into a 
social unity or cooperative society which shall 
answer to that called by Jesus the kingdom of God. 
Till we have the units we cannot have the whole ; but 
meanwhile putting the whole into the best condition 
discoverable, making the environment as nearly nor- 
mal as possible, will conserve and help to produce 
the units. 

Materialistic ethics teaches that one should live 
for the race, sacrifice self, die finally, and bravely 
be annihilated. The sole result of this life is glori- 
fied humanity ; that on this view is the only immor- 
tality. Well, if one can believe no more and yet 
wants to introduce a glorified humanity, living on 
earth under the most harmonious social system, 
there is no better way than to get one's self ethically 



230 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

right and pure in outward conduct and internal 
desire; to be at one with the Father whom Jesus 
worshiped, with all opposing qualities out of his 
heart and life; to eliminate the action which is not 
''fit to be made a universal rule'' ; not only to abolish 
selfish action but to eradicate the very tendency to 
selfishness and lawlessness in the nature ; to receive 
power to do this from the God of wisdom and love. 
Then let everybody keep to this way of life till a race 
wholly made up of such people appears, cultivating 
and enjoying each other's society and the resources 
and fruits of the earth. 

Man has the assurance of the present help and co- 
operation of the Spirit who has guided the develop- 
ment of life from the distant ages to the present 
time. That Spirit, who marks every sparrow's fall, 
who directs the work of the humble earthworm plow- 
ing through the soil, who knows the way of the great 
''leviathan" through the sea, who watches the 
changes and variations of the species, is ever at hand 
to assist man in his efforts to throw off the dominion 
of the flesh and to fulfill the life of the Spirit. Like 
the atmosphere crowding to fill every cranny, crevice, 
and vacuum, upon every man the truth and grace 
of God are pressing, trying to enlighten, renovate, 
and uplift his life. Like an ocean vast and mighty 
and of unknown depth, easily supporting all fleets, 
that mighty power, incalculable power, back of all 
evolution and all worlds, is at the disposal of every 
man who will enter the kingdom of God, the king- 
dom of the Spirit, and become a purified and fit 
member of the same. A largess of that power and 



FULL SALVATION 231 

holiness and love which shone in the face of Jesus 
Christ is within reach of everyone to-day who wishes 
to touch the hem of his garment and be healed. In 
his warfare against evil propensities and moral 
ignorance and infirmities of the flesh, man has 
abundant help, limitless grace, and divine coopera- 
tion. God himself by the Eternal Spirit is present 
with infinite power to aid every child of the race, 
as the universe is full of electrical energy sufficient 
to do every man's menial work, after he learns how 
to use it. It is impossible to appropriate divine 
grace for selfish purposes; it is only obtainable by 
him who surrenders to God. Why should any man 
fail to submit to and use and in turn become the 
purveyor of this divine grace? Why should any 
continue in the life of the flesh when he might rise 
into the purity, nobility, and Godlikeness of the life 
of the Spirit? The Spirit who brooded over 
primeval chaos, or the formless and void, is hover- 
ing over every upward-looking, longing soul, as well 
as the lawless, ready to introduce that order and 
peace and triumphant ''walk" which belong to the 
rule and kingdom of the Spirit. 

** I have climbed to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field 
in the Past, 
Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a 
low desire; 
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last. 
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of 
a height that is higher.*' 

MYSTICAL UNION 

This great step in the appropriation of salvation 
may be described again clearly and convincingly as 



232 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the resolution of dualism into unity. It is the aboli- 
tion or removal of the dualism in the conscious life, 
and to a large extent in the nature, and the restora- 
tion of unity and peace. Nearly all earnest Chris- 
tians are conscious of a struggle within to do right ; 
the Christian life is a warfare, usually a bitter one, 
with too frequent defeats for the good purpose. 
There is a prolonged contest between the higher 
nature, which is born of the Spirit, and the lower 
nature, which is born of the flesh. At the begin- 
ning of the Christian life the supreme choice is right 
and much of the inner life is right, and the best at- 
tempt is made to have the outer life right. The at- 
tempt is not altogether successful; all of the con- 
scious life is not brought into subjection to God's 
will; the constitution is not remodeled so that it 
obeys the believer's will ''without kicking." In de- 
scribing this a converted Indian said, "There are 
two Indians inside of me^ a good and a bad." The 
secret of this dualism — distraction — is that the lower 
self is disputing the throne of the soul with the 
higher self and with Christ. ''There is an inward 
schism between the spiritual and carnal forces." The 
Christian life is not an easy and triumphant march 
through a friendly country. It would be a pleasure 
if the path of the justified man were always "as the 
shining light, that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day." That it is not so is due to the remain- 
ing power of old ideas and habits and the weakness 
of the flesh, that is, the corruption of the affections 
and the enslavement of the will by them. The soul 
is confused as to how much indulgence to allow to 



FULL SALVATION 233 

old appetites and pleasures; they make encroach- 
ments. ''Conscience illuminated by the Holy Spirit 
says one thing, desires of the flesh and world say 
another. The will plays fast and loose between the 
opposing forces; it has burned the bridges, but at 
times half inclines to rebuild them. There is a 
pull both ways in it, with an occasional inclination 
to compromise; it despises gross sin, but it courts 
some indulgence." ''The flesh lusteth against the 
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ; and these are 
contrary the one to the other ; so that ye cannot do 
the things that ye would" (Gal. 5. 17). This 
trouble is so prolonged and painful in many lives 
and accompanied with so many defeats that the 
believer gets discouraged and thinks it hardly worth 
while to try for a better life. If the defeat is well- 
nigh continual, and after known sin repentance 
and a new vigorous effort do not immediately 
follow, the believer is going backward, not for- 
ward; he is not going on to perfection, but is 
likely soon to lose his standing as a justified man. 
The regenerate life is not extending in his members, 
and sinful tendencies are not decreasing but per- 
haps gaining on him. If any Christian reader finds 
himself in this state, let him up and out of it at once, 
and cry unto God for help. It is a more dangerous 
condition than the pleasant sleep that overtakes the 
freezing man in the snows of the Klondike. 

Rev. A. B. Earl and others have given us their 
experience at this acute stage : "About ten years ago 
I began to feel an inexpressible hungering and long- 
ing for the fullness of Christ's love. I loved the 



234 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

work of the ministry, but had long felt an inward 
unrest, a void in my soul that was not filled. Sea- 
sons of great joy would be followed by seasons 
of darkness and doubt. If I had peace, I feared 
it would not continue, and it did not. ... In this 
state I was exposed to severe temptations and attacks 
of the enemy; I made strong and repeated resolu- 
tions that I would be faithful, but could not keep 
them. Then I sought and found forgiveness again 
and was happy ; but my peace was soon disturbed by 
some word or act or heart-wandering. . . . Many 
a discouraged day followed these heart-searchings. 
At times my joy and peace were almost unbounded; 
sometimes I felt that I grasped the prize so ear- 
nestly sought, but was shown some hidden sin in my 
heart which greatly humbled and distressed me. . . . 
One sin hardest to overcome was a strong will, a 
desire and almost a determination to have my own 
way. In regard to little things or a little injury I 
would speak without reflection and severely to my 
friends. I saw this must be overcome. At last I 
felt that the question for me to settle was this : Can 
an imperfect Christian sweetly and consciously rest 
in a perfect Saviour without condemnation?"^ An- 
other says of his struggles: ^'Notwithstanding my 
profession that I had crucified the world, the flesh, 
and the devil, I had keener sorrows for indwelling 
sin than I ever experienced before conversion. O 
the distress which I have felt on account of pride, 
envy, love of the world, and other evil passions 
which have risen up and disturbed my peace be- 

*Rest of Faith, pp. 62-71. 



FULL SALVATION 235 

tween God and my souL''^ These persons found 
subsequently a rest and a peace which they felt was 
deep and satisfactory and continued without inter- 
ruption. 

What is the meaning of this strife within? It is 
that the nature, the appetites, and the passions do 
not obey the holy will of the believer. The re- 
generate man tries to love God with all his heart and 
mind and finds his heart divided ; the old self is still 
clinging to the world, to Vanity Fair, to pride and 
vain ambition, or flits after many attractions, some 
cheap and earthy. The new life is a clean life or 
force — embodied in unclean surroundings of mind 
and body; it must fight for existence and clear out 
rebellion wholly, and defects as far as possible, to 
make a fit habitation for itself. It longs for the free- 
dom wherewith the Son can make it free; for its 
free and native atmosphere from above, "the glo- 
rious liberty of the children of God." There is a 
division, a dualism in the heart and life. 

When the believer reaches a state of resolution or 
a day when he is so tired of his struggle that he is 
eager to end it and willing to pay the price for 
deliverance ; when he is convinced from the Word of 
God that his Saviour is able and ready to help him 
now, he presents his body and spirit a living sacrifice 
to God and prays fervently for healing to the strong 
Son of God; he bows at the cross. God, who is 
easily entreated at this crisis, intervenes and says to 
the storm-tossed soul, "Peace, be still." Then there 
comes a great calm and an abiding peace. God 

1 Rest of Faith, p. 70, 



236 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

restores unity to the divided and distracted person- 
ality. He overthrows the anarchy of the flesh, he 
aboHshes the duaHsm and introduces order and a 
higher unity. The beHever has then passed out of 
the struggle of the seventh chapter of Romans, 
or something similar, into the freedom and "no con- 
demnation" of the eighth chapter of Romans. He 
has the Comforter, or Holy Spirit, in larger measure 
and has attained a new state of oneness with Christ. 
After this reception of the fullness of the Spirit the 
believer finds his heart united to love God with 
all his mind and strength and his neighbor as him- 
self. Opposition within is quelled; old enemies are 
overthrown or exterminated, and it is far easier to 
love unloving neighbors and to overcome evil with 
good. At conversion the duality of wills between 
man and God, that is, the opposition of man's will 
to the divine will, disappears by the surrender of 
the sinner. Not only does the resulting harmony 
remain, but it also enlarges into a deeper unity. 
At the entrance upon this life of perfect love the 
duality between the believer's will as obedient to 
God and his nature, hitherto capricious, refractory, 
and unfavorable to the renewed life, largely dis- 
appears. The alacrity with which the mental powers 
and the nervous system obey the renewed will is the 
proximate cause of the great rest and peace which 
the soul enjoys at this time. Moral character in 
the secondary sense has undergone a process of 
re-creation. 

In the renewed life previously the believer's will, 
while remaining true to God, could not always rule 



FULL SALVATION 237 

his inclinations, feelings, and propensities; he could 
not bring ''every thought into captivity to Christ;" 
the outward man, the nature, did not always delight 
to obey the inner man, or the wishes of God. After 
the restoration of unity and harmony the Christian's 
tastes, and his consent that ''the law is holy and just 
and good," meet with more approval in his con- 
stitution; and his choices are for the most part — 
in his ordinary conscious life — carried into execu- 
tion by the more obedient members. The sensibili- 
ties have learned not to murmur at affliction or dis- 
appointment which is from. God, and to rejoice in 
persecution for righteousness' sake. The nature no 
longer allowed by the Christian to run into excess 
or riotous disorder, but subdued and made obedient 
to the better self, is poised under the working of the 
Holy Spirit in a new readjustment wherein that 
nature will do the will of God spontaneously or to a 
greater degree of its own accord. The power of 
such a life is beautifully pictured by Daniel Steele, 
as he contrasts the movement of the soul toward 
God in holiness with the movement in the opposite 
direction. He is borrowing from mechanics the 
principle of the resultant force for illustration : "On 
the other hand, let all the forces in the soul of the 
justified person wheel into line with the dominant 
force, love to God, then the soul mounts swiftly up- 
ward, like a balloon when the ropes are all cut and 
the sandbags are all cast but. We may now better 
understand what is signified by the blending of all 
the forces of the soul into one Godward impulse. 
It can be easily seen, moreover, that there is a 



238 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

limit to this unifying of our internal forces. When 
the last antagonism is either destroyed or brought 
into perfect accord with the upward impulse of the 
soul, the unification has become complete. This is 
Christian perfection. . . . The sum of our im- 
pulses toward the right and toward God may become 
absolutely complete through divine grace. They 
may daily become stronger, but they can never be- 
come more than total. We wish this distinction be- 
tween totality and strength could be clearly seen and 
kept in mind."^ 

There is a gradual work or process in this victory, 
and there is an instant when it is complete or total 
for the conscious life. Between the gradual part 
and the instantaneous part the writer has not taken 
pains to distinguish in this fourth description. God 
must bring this unity and restore harmony with 
man's cooperation ; man can never do this alone. 

The fibers of the wood of an old Cremona violin 
played on for years by masters of music have be- 
come resonant and have probably adjusted them- 
selves so as to vibrate to perfect tones and to melody 
and harmony. So the being of the Christian is re- 
organized to react in harmony with the renewed will, 
with a holy and steadfast purpose, at one with 
the will of God. Accordingly, opposition, within, 
counter-movements, and insubordination of pervert- 
ed appetites and passions have largely ceased. The 
prayer of the psalmist, ''Unite my heart to fear thy 
name," has been answered. It is not strange that 
many saints can testify of the resulting peace and 

^Milestone Papers, pp. 126, 127, 



FULL SALVATION 239 

harmony. There is a condition of the nature grow- 
ing somewhat Hke the earthly physical and psychic- 
al life of the Saviour of men in its harmony with 
the Father in heaven. 

The words ''Abide in me^ and I in you," are find- 
ing fulfillment. This is the tinio mystica of theology, 
the mystical relation between the believer and his 
Saviour, like that of the branch and the vine. And 
the cessation or great decrease of the strife within 
is the result of the believer's union with Christ. God 
constructs in the human personality the new man, a 
higher unity more after his own image. Christ is 
being formed within so large that the "old man" has 
had to move out. ''Ye put on the new man, which 
after God is created in righteousness and true holi- 
ness" (Eph. 4. 24). The transformation into 
Christ's likeness is taking place in such a soul with 
the mighty defeat of the evil forces by the power 
of God, and the believer sets up a milestone inscribed 
"Ebenezer," stone of help — "Hitherto hath the Lord 
helped" me. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Full Salvation: Supplementary Points; Prop- 
ositions 

possible dangers or perplexities 

I. Some people think, or are made to believe by 
religious workers in meetings, that they have been 
perfected in love. In after days in more quiet mo- 
ments, when religious emotion has subsided, they 
feel that they have been in error. They are be- 
wildered and in danger of losing ground religiously 
as well as of losing faith in the truth and in the 
experience. Some very earnest and conscientious 
people, even morbidly conscientious, have had great 
perplexities and darkness at this point. Let them 
not give up; there is such a life as has been de- 
scribed in these pages and by many servants of God. 
It is for them; they may learn to abide in Christ 
sweetly without interruption. Let them quietly, 
aided by prayer and the Word of God, go over the 
ground carefully step by step, yield fully to God, 
and meet all the conditions of the promises and trust 
God's word for his part of the work without emo- 
tion ; then live each day in as perfect harmony with 
what they believe or discover to be the will of God as 
they can. God will fill their hearts with his Spirit. 
Let no one give up seeking, or imagine that this ex- 
perience has been too highly colored or overstated, 
or that it is not for him. The rest of faith, the 

240 



FULL SALVATION 241 

heart full of a sense of acceptance with God and of 
perfect loyaky to him with no leaning in the opposite 
direction, is for everybody. Claim and take this 
attitude now and keep it. The same amount and 
intensity and exhibition of emotional excitement, re- 
joicings, ecstatic exaltations, and noisy demonstra- 
tions are not for all. Each receives according to his 
capacity and manifests his exuberant or tranquil joy 
according to his disposition. ^'There are diversities 
of gifts, but the same Spirit.'' 

2. There are those who have been truly perfected 
in love, have been satisfied at the time, but some 
sinful tendency, as they think, or something wrong 
appears in the inner life which troubles them. They 
cannot account for it, since they have been taught, 
probably, that all inbred sin was utterly exter- 
minated from their nature. Testimony is at hand 
from those who have been thus perplexed. Let no 
one turn back or become unsettled at this or grieve 
the Spirit through unbelief in his work. Yield not 
to this form of temptation, but cling to Christ. One 
cannot always understand all the workings of his 
heart or discover the origin of all thoughts and in- 
clinations. The explanation subjoined is given here 
in the hope that it may help some. The small heart 
or narrow conscious life may be as full of the divine 
love as the large heart; then the capacity may be 
enlarged and, although no more than full, one may 
possess more of the divine love. This is commonly 
called the enlargement of the vessel, and is to be ex- 
pected and desired. It signifies growth ; and, further, 
the apparent enlargement of the vessel, the conscious 



242 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

inner life, may come through greater practice and 
skill in introspection and the power of the trained 
consciousness. The psychological explanation of 
this may be the following : The conscious life is en- 
larged; more of the subconscious realm of the 
nature has crossed the threshold into the light of con- 
sciousness, and some appearance of evil seems to 
be descried. Under the enlightenment of the Word 
and of the Spirit and the Christian's conscientious 
practice, he sees deeper into his nature or constitu- 
tion than before. His eyes are opened to discern the 
soft motion or thick disguise of sinful proclivities. 
This is similar to letting the sunbeams into a room 
previously dark. Possibly something of wrong, not 
before seen, impossible that it should be, perhaps not 
existing at the time of the reception of full salvation, 
has entered the heart with other elements. It may be 
some point previously overlooked or not presented 
to the attention. Let Christ remove it at once, as 
before, and the heart will be clean as formerly. 
''The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from 
all sin" every day, if we will, not merely once in the 
past. An occurrence like this is not so frequent or 
troublesome a visitor as the old propensities to self- 
gratification or disobedience. It may be a feeble 
effort of some inclination deep down within us, out 
of sight ordinarily, to keep from dying altogether, 
to get recognition and to live. Such suggestion or 
whisper of infirm nature, or call of legitimate ap- 
petite for excessive feeding or indulgence, is not 
made usually in a religious meeting or at the height 
of religious fervor. But they come at some idle 



FULL SALVATION 243 

time or period of depression, when the sinful act un- 
seen and undetected by man might take place; the 
tempter is waiting his chance to push his cause with 
any inward help from old susceptibilities. Let no 
Christian think he has lost his standing or high estate 
then, but let him seize this as a favorable opportunity 
to deal a last blow at a foe still twitching although 
supposedly dead. Christ is at hand to destroy this 
suggestion of evil ; he will do it, and the fully saved 
man remains in his blessed state. 

3. Some phases of this phenomenon are to be ex- 
plained by the growing power of the conscience in 
moral discernment; God is sending new light and 
raising the ethical standard of his child. Any 
Christian who grows in grace as he ought will find 
from time to time, both before and after full salva- 
tion, that he does not think it right to do certain 
things or hold certain beliefs or practices which he 
formerly thought right. Mr. F. B. Meyer said in a 
discourse on this subject, ''I do not do many things 
I did ten years ago." Because of obedience the 
Spirit is enlarging the believer's knowledge of the 
''perfect will of God"; let him rejoice. Some of 
the darkening of the intellect caused by racial sin in 
the wide sense is being removed. Rev. A. M. Hills 
says, quoting from a witness for holiness: ''All 
along the line I was frequently surprised at new 
discoveries. Things which had seemed perfectly 
right and proper became objects of inward sus- 
picion. Whenever this occurred a prompt willing- 
ness to turn on the most searching light was always 
felt ; ... no inward desire to go contrary to the will 



244 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of God being experienced." Mr. Hills then adds, 
''Such a spirit will keep the blessing of holiness."^ 
Such a Christian God is lifting nearer to his point of 
view of his holy law. Now this obedient man abid- 
ing in Christ stops doing the thing that is wrong, in- 
expedient, or doubtful, or takes up the new duty 
suggested. This is a part of legitimate growth in 
knowledge and Godliness after entire sanctification ; 
it is "perfecting holiness." 

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT 

There is a witness of the Holy Spirit to the attain- 
ment of perfect love as well as to adoption. Scrip- 
ture verses making this plain affirmation in so many 
words are not easily found; likewise there are few 
passages, if any, saying that slavery or dancing or 
forgery is wrong ; but enough light is given to prove 
most of these wrong from the Scripture. The 
witness of the Spirit is a truth to be maintained, yet 
to be carefully guarded, as it is easily perverted and 
is the source of many errors and delusions. Wesley 
warned the people sharply against these errors under 
the name of enthusiasm, and many of his successors 
have repeated the warnings. It is not to be taught 
that the Holy Spirit reveals information to people 
about heredity or sociology or natural science; or 
that he explains or testifies to propositions in 
theology or tells people that all their inbred sin 
is eradicated. People should not mistake their in- 
ferences, wishes, or impressions for his facts. 
The Holy Spirit works in men a sense of the 

^ Holiness and Power, p. 354. 



FULL SALVATION 245 

approval or disapproval of God, thougH it is 
possible to err on this point. The Holy Spirit 
v^itnesses that a work is done in the earnest 
believing soul in answer to prayer offered in 
accordance with the promises of God recorded in 
the Holy Scripture; true prayer means that the 
seeker meets all the conditions of the promise to the 
best of his ability. The nature or result of the work 
performed by God in the soul is that the believer 
feels no tendency to oppose God, neither to swear or 
kill or hate or strive or to show pride, envy, com- 
plaining, or undue gratification of self; his heart 
seems like a cleansed sanctuary filled with the Spirit. 
He prays without ceasing, rejoices in all things, and^ 
accepts the will of God gladly even though it bring 
persecution, imprisonment, or suffering. The Holy 
Spirit sets his approval on this state as complete, 
filling the heart. Such surrender to the work of God 
and such feelings and purposes of devotion to Christ 
appear in the words of Paul: "And I will very 
gladly spend and be spent for you" (2 Cor. 12. 15). 
'T say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience 
also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I 
have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my 
heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed 
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according 
to the flesh" (Rom. 9. 1-3). The Spirit's revelation 
is to the obediently poised and listening soul, as we 
surmise, without language. Human speech and 
technicalities are not needed in the approach of God 
to the soul; they might be clumsy and more than 
useless obstructions. This witness of the Spirit is 



246 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

always in harmony with the teachings of Scripture 
and the character of Christ. Scripture teaching in 
support of the doctrine of the presence and self- 
revelation of the Divine Spirit in the human heart 
may be found in the fifteenth and sixteenth chap- 
ters of John's Gospel; in Luke ii. 13, like Matt. 
7. 11; in Acts 15. 8-9; I Cor. 2. 12; 2 Cor. i. 21, 22; 
in I John 4. 13; and in other passages. 

Is there not a witness of the Spirit to wicked men 
that they are under condemnation and the wrath of 
God? Is not the Spirit convincing the world of sin? 
There seems to be sufficient agreement among 
Christians that the Holy Spirit witnesses to their 
adoption into God's family, calls some into the 
ministry, and gives guidance in the life and special 
direction to Christian workers. It is expressly 
stated that "the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barna- 
bas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called 
them" (Acts 13. 2). Young men entering the minis- 
try are asked this question : ''Do you trust that you 
are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon 
you the office of the ministry in the church of 
Christ?'' The candidate is required to answer, "I 
trust so." All this, of course, opens the question of 
inspiration and revelation, which cannot be dis- 
cussed here. To deny the access of God to the soul 
of man to-day might discredit any revelation in the 
past. 

Is there any communication between God and 
man? Was there any communication to men in 
Bible times, and has it altogether ceased? Did any 
prophet or apostle have a revelation or direction in 



FULL SALVATION M7 

his life from God which is not recorded in the 
Bible? If so, he had an advantage over those now 
Hving, if so be that no impression, knowledge, or 
sense of approval can come to the soul now from 
its Maker or Redeemer. He who maintains the last 
part of this proposition must be very wise; he can 
doubtless tell whence all our impressions, thoughts, 
mental images, and *Vandering thoughts" come. O 
that he would write a book ! Yet no one is entitled 
to say on account of ignorance of their origin that 
all his impressions or inner suggestions to activity 
are prompted by the Spirit ; the witness of the Spirit 
should not be treated as a common vulgar occur- 
rence. 

The doctrine of the immanence of God is gaining 
ground. It seems quite within the bounds of truth 
to affirm that the Holy Spirit is revealing moral 
truth to the race as fast as they will receive it and 
quickening the moral sense of mankind. He has led 
them to see that polygamy, slavery, dueling, and 
many wars are wrong. Is he not creating before 
our eyes a strong sentiment or a keener moral appre- 
ciation wdiich says that the modern liquor traffic, 
Congo atrocities, and white slavery are wrong? He 
is awakening multitudes to the evils and injustice of 
the industrial oppression of anyone, especially of 
women and children. Under the guise of the 
hand of God in history the Holy Spirit is making 
a gradual revelation in the souls of mankind of the 
deeper meaning and special applications of the 
coimnandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." 



248 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

POSSIBLE DEFICIENCIES OF THE FULLY SAVED MAN 

A few words are needed on the condition of the 
man made perfect in love, or what he is not. This 
comprises the changes or excellences not involved in 
full salvation, or the possible defects, intellectual, 
social, physical, and even moral, of the man who 
possesses the life more abundant. To get all on 
this point the reader is referred to the paragraphs 
soon to come on intellect and emotions, and 
also to those parts of the third and fourth chapters 
dealing with the removal of inbred and acquired sin 
and how much is left. The one made perfect in love 
means to do exactly right, has a right will, has in- 
dwelling sin removed from his heart. This tells us 
nothing about the original constitution, ability, or 
usefulness of the man apart from his religious zeal 
and subjective attainment. Full salvation is a rela- 
tive blessing, in some measure peculiar or fitted to 
the capacity and consciousness of each recipient ; it 
is proportioned to and is to be measured by the size 
of his conscious life. There is great variety, as there 
are wide differences in mental equipment, scientific 
and historical knowledge, and skill in the arts. A 
man fully saved must have knowledge of the one 
true God and of a Saviour, and some considerable 
knowledge as to right and wrong, or what is pleas- 
ing to his Saviour ; he could hardly be immersed in 
polytheism and make this attainment in the divine 
life. Aside from this knowledge he may believe the 
world is flat, be unable to read or write, and live in 
the practice of polygamy and slavery, thinking they 



FULL SALVATION 249 

are right, as did some called perfect in heart by the 
Bible generations ago. A Patagonian made perfect 
in love would doubtless be in a very different state 
morally and socially from an English or American 
college graduate who is a child of educated and 
refined Christian parents and is also made perfect in 
love. What prejudices a fully saved man may have, 
how low a moral standard, how dull a conscience, or 
how defective an intellect, no one can say in advance. 
An unregenerate person may have more moral en- 
lightenment, and a higher ethical standard and cul- 
ture; how great is his condemnation that he lacks 
the single eye, the right moral purpose, of the child 
of God who has not had his advantages or natural 
endowment ! Knowledge of hygiene, polished man- 
ners, and graceful actions may be lacking; but good 
will, a spirit of kindness to all, will abound. High 
attainment in grace may coexist with low attainment 
in the common affairs of life and in the accom- 
plishments of cultivated society. One may be dis- 
gusted with or pity the ignorance, rudeness, uncouth- 
ness, and general dilapidated condition and poor 
showing in business or society of the fully saved 
man; yet his inner state is not to be judged by the 
etiquette of society in a particular country or age. 
All the fully saved are alike in having perfect loyalty 
to Christ and in the absence of proneness to dis- 
obedience. They are good to enter into right re- 
lationships with all moral beings, including God. 
Concerning what else they may be good for full 
salvation says nothing. Attainments in knowledge 
about nonmoral or nonreligious subjects and busi- 



250 AN EiPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

ness ability and success as an artist or artisan lie 
outside the sphere of perfect loyalty to God. 

The person's original traits are not destroyed by 
this work in the soul ; some are not greatly modified ; 
he is the same person as before. The limitations and 
weaknesses of finiteness remain ; no one can tell what 
defects or disease in his body or mind, perhaps due 
to the sins of past generations or to his past life or 
other causes, still linger in strange contrast to the 
purity of his soul. To say one *'lives without sin" 
may be easy for the ignorant, for some of very 
limited outlook and narrow circle of activity and 
responsibility in life, or for those who only remem- 
ber three or four commandments practically and 
make no account of sins of omission. It throws 
much light on this phase of the subject to keep in 
mind Noah Porter's distinction between natural or 
spontaneous consciousness and reflective or trained 
consciousness : ^'The first is possessed by all men, the 
second by few; the first is a gift of nature and 
product of spontaneous growth; the second is an 
accomplishment of art and the reward of special dis- 
cipline."^ Consciousness is the power by which the 
soul knows its own acts and states. Consciousness 
can be exercised with varying degrees of energy and 
attention. ''Men differ more widely in respect to the 
energy and effects with which they use this power 
than in respect to any other. . . . Under the in- 
fluence of moral and religious stimulus it is often- 
times brought to striking maturity in persons who, 
in other respects, have little culture. Not unfre- 

1 Human Intellect, p. 87. 



FULL SALVATION 251 

quently its development is carried to a morbid ex- 
cess." People with untrained consciousness and 
little knowledge of the moral law in its specific 
application to the varied situations of life, who 
move in a very circumscribed sphere, may easily 
say they see no sin within. Like Lord Nelson with 
his blind eye looking at signals in battle he did not 
want to see, they look at sin's effects with the blind 
eye and do not see many. On the other hand, the 
case might be very different with a Christian schol- 
ar, possibly a lifelong investigator of psycholog- 
ical problems, who has pushed out the boundaries 
of the field of consciousness much nearer to the 
limits of his nature, reducing the area of the sub- 
conscious. Such a thoughtful man with reflective 
or trained consciousness who takes minute account 
of a very large portion of the stream of mental 
life may be slow to say that he discovers no effects 
of sin within. The area of conscious life is large for 
him, and he examines with eagle eye and micro- 
scopic minuteness. His conscience is sensitive, his 
knowledge of the law wide, and his standard high. 
The Bible calls a man with the right will, or funda- 
mental feeling, perfect, like David and others, 
though knowledge and conduct may be at times im- 
perfect. If a man will do his part, make the right 
choice, which none can make for him, or against his 
will, and keep this bearing, the subsequent moral 
education and enlightenment as to the divine stand- 
ard and the purification of the affections and lusts 
will surely follow some time. God can effect this 
improvement in a person coworking with him. 



252 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

INTELLECT AND EMOTIONS 

A glance is necessary at the realm of the unknown 
and undefinable. There is a part of the work per- 
formed in the soul by the Holy Spirit which cannot 
be defined or accurately described. How much of 
this should be called supernatural, and how much 
is accomplished through processes commonly called 
natural, cannot be told. This is an unexplored re- 
mainder in God's work, mysterious yet true; we 
refer to it in bulk and leave it ; future investigation 
may penetrate further. This work renovates in 
large measure, as has been said, character in the 
secondary sense; yet there may be something still 
left to be done here. This work reaches also into 
the nature or constitution, and to a degree repairs the 
damage of racial sin in the wide sense and personal 
sins in the past life ; there is more to be done here. 
In like manner there is good ground to believe that 
grace penetrates into the realm of ^'unconscious cere- 
bration," adjusting soul life to the will of God ; such 
hidden harmony will likely manifest itself later on 
in the conscious life. This form of work is con- 
tinued by the Spirit after full salvation. The 
general character of this work *'is the reconstruction 
of a soul — a readjustment of the reigning powers 
in it — a reversal of what by sin had become the 
dominant law of its life." An important side of 
this experience takes place in the emotional life and 
is indefinite and variable. People come to Christ 
seeking purity with different dispositions and natures 
differently stricken and weakened by sin, with 



FULL SALVATION 253 

different temperaments and education and under 
different outward surroundings in business and 
family life, and with widely varying grasp of the 
truth, power of faith, and apprehension of the 
Christ. There are many elements, accidents, and 
concomitants of full salvation which may exist or 
not and the experience still be genuine ; while some 
features of the work of perfect love are essential and 
about the same for all people. There are innumer- 
able degrees in this experience, as in that of re- 
generation. No person should expect to have all 
the details of the experience of full salvation pre- 
cisely like another's experience. 

The mode of the working of the Divine Spirit in 
human hearts, in mortifying the affections, crucify- 
ing the old man, creating the new man in Christ, and 
in part the mode of the working of our own natures, 
is unknown to us. How the Holy Spirit destroys 
old appetites and lusts and straightens out emotional 
life and makes men love pure pursuits and pleas- 
ures, how he calms the nerves and banishes sinful 
passions, has never been explained. Bishop Foster 
says concerning the process of regeneration : 'Ts the 
revolution effected by a direct act of the divine will, 
a direct energizing, or by instrumentality of truth 
divinely communicated? Probably both. We do 
know that truth is a mighty instrument for accom- 
plishing spiritual results.'' ''Sanctify them through 
thy truth" is Jesus's prayer. ''We do know that the 
Word of God is embodied power of God, that he 
communicates his saving energy through the Word ; 
but we do not know but that in regenerating the soul 



254 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

there is also a direct energizing in the intellect, the 
affections, and the will — a lifting, inspiring, recrea- 
tive energy. The effect produced points to such 
immediate agency, and we see not how to account 
for it in any other way."^ The same statement will 
apply to this extension of regeneration throughout 
the heart and deeper into the being, called entire 
sanctification, or the casting out of the sinward ten- 
dency and filling the heart with perfect love. In 
regard to this side of the work one may say as Jesus 
said of the new birth: ^'Thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
whither it goeth: so is every one that is" entirely 
sanctified ''of the Spirit." 

The emotions form a most difficult branch of the 
mental processes for study ; no psychologist has yet 
made a satisfactory and generally accepted classifi- 
cation of the emotions ; progress in this field is both 
slow and difficult. But the work is going on, and in 
time this fundamental and universal and much- 
meandering portion of psychical life may be as well 
mapped out and explained as the understanding. 
We cannot, therefore, hope to tell accurately and in 
detail all that occurs in this phase of soul life in 
perfect love. The point to see is that one should 
not dogmatize here; he should rather wait for 
further light; should not lay down fixed views and 
tenets till the facts are in and examined. It is not 
worth while to mar the work of God by disputing 
about the unknown. One can serve God and drive 
intentional sins and many sins of ignorance from 

^ philosophy of Christian Experience, p. 121. 



FULL SALVATION 255 

his life if he does not comprehend all the divine 
workings in the soul, all emotional life, and all about 
heredity. 

There is a strife or chasm between intellect and 
emotion; it seems deeply fixed in human life and 
manifests itself in widely different activities of man- 
kind. If this is due to depravity it is included under 
part (b) of the definition. If it is a necessary limita- 
tion of finiteness one would like to overcome it as 
much as possible. As this does not seem to exist in 
the one perfect Man, the author is inclined to be- 
lieve that the great displacement, fault in the geo- 
logical sense, existing in the stratification of the 
soul's powers, is to be ascribed to depravity result- 
ing from rebellion against Absolute Reason ; and to 
this also as worked out in the social environment, 
or to social heredity. The exclusiveness of mental 
states is worthy of notice; analytic and synthetic 
processes and states are opposite. The highly emo- 
tional condition of mind and the highly intellectual 
mode of strictly logical reasoning and profound ab- 
stract thought are mutually exclusive; the human 
mind cannot act in both these directions at once. 
Like the general relation of sensation to perception 
in an act of sense-perception, these modes exist in 
inverse ratio of intensity. This may be a necessary 
limitation from which no practical harm would come 
or need to come. But to cultivate one faculty always 
to the exclusion of the other brings a perverted 
condition. Shall we say feeling is narrow, selfish, 
even exclusive and unreasonable ? The popular say- 
ing is, ^Xove is blind," The mourners at the funeral, 



256 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

sad and heavy of heart, allow no hilarity around; it 
is discordant and painful to them. The jovial, happy 
people at the dance want no sadness or funereal 
gloom present ; they cannot endure it. Thus feeling 
has no sympathy with its opposite, any more than a 
live horse with a dead one. Likewise the man in rap- 
tures over union with his God, with a new-found joy 
flooding his soul, has no place at that moment for 
analytic reason, or judicial statements carefully 
weighed. These psychical states are exclusive of 
each other. Some at birth are more adapted to one 
of these states or processes than the other; if they 
exercise that chiefly and neglect the other, in later 
years they will be one-sided in development and 
finally unable to understand or appreciate those who 
started in life with an inheritance in the opposite 
direction and cultivated that chiefly. 

Put these moods in different people and too often 
this is the situation. The rich emotional life and 
fervor is in one man, the mystic or new convert. 
The intellectual life, clear thought, Huxley's power- 
ful logic-engine, is in another man; he may be a 
practical, quiet Christian ; perhaps he is an agnostic, 
often a non-Christian, immobile, likely incapable of 
great emotional stir, of judicial mind, and never 
excited. Neither man can comprehend the other; 
the consciousness of each gives factors or elements 
of the inner life largely lacking in the other. How 
shall we put the two together in order to get the 
normal man? This is like the question of how to 
train the theological student to strengthen his 
reasoning power, to enlarge his breadth of view and 



FULL SALVATION 257 

depth o£ insight, and to increase his judicial restraint 
or sound judgment, and not to have him lose mean- 
while the vim and enthusiasm which he brought to 
the seminary. This is not solved, but psychology, 
educational science, and experience are making prog- 
ress. We believe we see this opposition or the 
effects of this chasm between pure reason and emo- 
tion in some of the strife between science and 
religion; between science and art. The analytic 
botanist's treatment of the primrose and the poet's 
or artist's treatment of it reveal a different side, or 
even a different type of mind. As scientific men 
become poetical, and poets and artists become scien- 
tific, this strife will diminish. 

In the perfect life there must be room for the 
emotional element and the intellectual element in 
man to exist in true proportion and harmony. In 
the experience of perfect love, in the fullness of joy 
and peace, the expressions uttered and the phrase- 
ology belong to the emotions; the intellectual man 
has a hard time with them to reduce them to order. 
The true mystical or fervid temperament cares not 
for accuracy, is not scientific in habits of thought ; 
it lives most happily in another world, the world of 
the sensibilities; consistency does not trouble it. 
This state of soul, or mood, may be prolonged by 
practice till it becomes a fundamental characteristic, 
or well-worn channel of the feelings. Such charac- 
ters can easily skip the law- of cause and effect, or 
mistake subjective impressions for objective reali- 
ties. No careful statements or accurate definitions 
are to be expected from such moods — some people 



258 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

have few other moods — any more than from a 
lover's poem to his loved one. This is the province 
of subjective and individual life; great liberty must 
be allowed to the individual. The world or social 
instinct has not formed language with one accurate 
logical definition to each word and only one ; human 
communication might then be a dry and frigid affair. 
The names ''love," ''prayer/' and "God" are words 
with varied content to each person. The word "love" 
in popular usage, whether referred to God or 
the opposite sex, comprehends various qualities, 
ecstasies, and disappointments. Who can define it 
as a sentiment accurately, like a straight line ? Each 
individual puts his own construction and measure 
upon it. About love is a whole realm or worldful of 
expression spoken, written, and unspoken, leaping 
to manifestation in eye and gesture and posture, 
never ending, absolutely endless, running on at times 
like the little babbling brook a yard wide, then rush- 
ing like a swollen torrent, turgid with emotion ; noth- 
ing is too superlative for the enamored lover of God. 
At times this hastening stream fills a basin, makes a 
pool, and becomes quiet, reflecting sunshine and 
hills, trees and flowers by day, moon and stars 
by night. So the soul rests in the arms of the ever- 
lasting Father for a time ; then it flows on again over 
rapids of bounding joy. One should not write dog- 
matic theology or ethics in such a mood. Allow 
great liberty here to the individual without criticism ; 
we do not expect calmness and judicial statement 
from a lover at the high tide of his love. Let love 
flow; let feelings flame forth, hallelujahs rise, and 



FULL SALVATION 259 

spring poetry be written. All that the critical or 
intellectual mood or people need to do with this 
element, without form and void, is to keep it within 
proper bounds, giving it a wide road ; make it amen- 
able to some reason, to some definitions in its quieter 
moments and to sound sense and prudence in public 
meetings; then let it skip and play like the lamb in 
its own beautiful, large and verdant field and beside 
the still waters. This divine life in the soul ought to 
be vigorous and buoyant enough to run through a 
troop and to leap over a wall. Woe to him in the 
religious world who has never such life, or even in 
the home ; he is like the dry tree which may soon be 
chiefly good for either lumber or firewood. His 
quiet, unexpressed religion may make little impres- 
sion on the world or even upon his friends. 

This great joyful, bubbling, seething, fervent, 
overflowing, rapturous, bursting fullness of salva- 
tion, this third-heaven experience, the mountain-top 
visions and exaltations of the soul, must have a 
place in the life for each in his own degree and 
manner ; it has a mission in the world. When within 
proper limits, let no one disparage it, but hold it 
sacred. Let the sun shine, the birds sing, the bands 
play, and the great organ peal forth for each exult- 
ant soul; let the human spirit, if possible, catch 
some music from the celestial choirs and give it 
forth again in sweetest harmony in a world where 
sin has made such discord. _ The humble and illit- 
erate may express their feelings very poorly and in 
meager phrase or halting speech ; others may be 
able to command the highest type of prose or poetry 



26o AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

to express their feelings and magnify the Lord; 
thus at the same time giving eloquent expression to 
what is common to thousands of devout hearts. 

There is a great literature in this vein. Closely 
allied to it are bucolic poetry, erotic literature, and 
love sonnets. A vast amount of this writing, turgid 
with meaning at the time of composition, is perhaps 
afterward in the wastepaper basket; yet some of it 
gives us the finest poetry. A modern writer sings 

**When all thy mercies, O my God, 
My rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view, I'm lost 
In wonder, love, and praise." 

According to the psalmist the judgments of the 
Lord are ^'sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." 
One recalls the doxologies and prayers of the New 
Testament straining human language to the utmost 
to portray the length and breadth and height and 
depth of ''the love of Christ, which passeth knowl- 
edge." Miriam's song is an outburst after a great 
national deliverance; Moses' song rings with the 
same spirit, and Mary has given us the magnificat 
of the soul. In this strain Bernard of Clairvaux has 
composed many verses ; three of his hymns, begin- 
ning with No. 700, are in the old Methodist Hymnal : 

** Jesus, the very thought of thee 
With sweetness fills the breast; 
But sweeter far thy face to see, 
And in thy presence rest. 

** But what to those who find? Ah, this 
Nor tongue nor pen can show : 
The love of Jesus, what it is. 
None but his loved ones know." 



FULL SALVATION 261 

Sixtus of Sienna says: Bernard's sermons ''are at 
once so sweet and so ardent it is as though his mouth 
were a fountain of honey and his heart a whole 
furnace of love." It is worthy of note that at the 
opposite extreme, the supremacy of dialectic reason- 
ing, was Abelard, who was charged by Bernard 
with heresy. There are some outbursts of emotion 
from Paul, but his powerful logical writings hold 
the larger place. In Revelation the heavenly choir is 
singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. A great 
multitude are saying, ''Alleluia: for the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth." In Isaiah's vision the sera- 
phim are filling heaven with the trisagion, "Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." This ceaseless 
attempt at expression by men and women of many 
races and times means that there is something in the 
soul which cannot be adequately expressed in human 
speech; the tongues of men and of angels fail. It 
means that the ideas and emotions are too big for 
their dress, for rhetoric or human language. The 
same difficulty is encountered in all art; the great 
artist cannot put his ideal perfectly into music or 
into the marble or on the canvas, though he do his 
best. Likewise it is the great unexpressed in reli- 
gious man which strives always for expression in 
human language or in the material world. This 
applies to human experience in regeneration as well 
as in perfect love. That there be, however, no 
schism in the soul or body, this spirit must not con- 
demn or try to banish pure intellect or abstract 
thought or consider its truth of little moment. 
Many quiet or taciturn pious souls should not 



262 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

suppress this life of the emotions but cultivate 
it, and with enthusiasm and glad jubilation cause 
their fervent spirits to glow and to move the world. 
A part of the experience of full salvation belongs in 
this field and is left with the indefinite and mys- 
terious. The definable and explainable we will try 
to comprehend ; the undefined may be kept by care- 
ful thinkers wathin dikes constructed in thoughtful 
moods, so that doctrines and ethical principles may 
not be washed out perennially by the overflowing of 
the banks, by the great river of human feeling 
streaming toward the Infinite, toward a holy God. 
When devout imaginative souls in these exalted 
states, or these moods in any soul, write theology and 
insist that all take their terms^ their feelings at such 
moments as a standard, and even their idiosyncra- 
sies, reason may object and say this cannot be. 
There is a difference between sound theological or 
biblical doctrine and a love poem. If people try to 
crown imagination and emotion in place of reason, 
they injure religion seriously and do much to secure 
the rejection of the good cause they represent by 
more self-controlled or torpid people or those of 
keener intellect and clearer vision. The ethical rea- 
son will set limits for conduct also, or a standard of 
love. Great individual choice is left to love and its 
manifestation; but if a man says he loves his wife 
dearly, but his love takes the affectionate form of 
giving her a good beating once a fortnight because 
she displeases him, ethical judgment may say this 
shall not be called true love in the United States. 
The police judge may be invoked to check this aber- 



FULL SALVATION 263 

ration of love. In like manner sound judgment, not 
the emotional excitement of the moment, must de- 
termine what is proper to be said or sung or done in 
public religious meetings. The spirits — behavior 
and feelings — of the prophets individually ought to 
be subject to the good sense of the prophets collect- 
ively. Thus, within proper doctrinal, ethical, and 
practical limits, the emotional life may have large 
freedom and greatly benefit the world. It should 
fulfill its mission and attain its fullest and most 
proper development. 

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF FULL SALVATION 

Some may be helped by a few brief statements 
about this great experience ; such brief propositions 
cannot contain quite all the truth on the subject 
except in a general way. This experience is so big 
and complex that it cannot be put into a sentence or 
a dozen sentences except as the whole gospel may 
be put into one verse like John 3. 16. One cannot 
empty the ocean into Lake Michigan. Here, it is to 
be hoped, are the essential or chief elements of this 
experience. There are constants and variants ; some 
points which are known and certain; some which 
are unknown or indefinable. The Wesleyan view of 
the subject embraces the following: 

I. There must be perfect intention or right sup- 
preme choice ; stated in the negative, there must be 
no voluntary sin. This state or position is attained 
at the time of regeneration in theory; but practice 
too often falls below this standard. This is a con- 
stant property; it is perfect loyalty to Christ. 



264 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

2. The remainder of the innate sin ward tendency, 
or bent to sinning, is cast out of the heart; acquired 
tendencies to evil are removed wholly or in large 
measure, if they have not previously disappeared. 
The new man or Christ is formed within. This is 
a constant property or necessary component of the 
true type of life. The nature is more or less re- 
constructed, infirmities are fewer; this part is vari- 
able with different people. 

3. The heart is full of love; the person abides in 
Christ continually, devoting himself daily and all he 
has to God ; and Christ abides in him. There is pre- 
supposed, though not always mentioned in this way, 
a certain skill or proficiency in the art of holy liv- 
ing, in prayer, in the understanding of the Word, 
and a larger faith and more power to resist tempta- 
tion. There is less practical ignorance of God and 
his ways with man ; higher attainment in the moral 
discernment of conscience is evident ; it is supposed 
to be up to the best light of the age. There are 
fewer sins of ignorance and fewer slips and falls 
than formerly. This part is variable; the most of 
this is not usually attained at the time of regenera- 
tion. 

4. The baptism or filling with the Holy Spirit is 
a constant or essential characteristic ; and the result 
is the fruits of the Spirit in the life. These should 
exist in larger degree than at regeneration. 

These three factors must not be wanting: the 
wholeness or entirety in the devotement to God, and 
the filling or possession of the heart by the Spirit ; 
the instantaneousness of the work usually, and the 



FULL SALVATION 



265 



witness of the Spirit by his own presence cleansing 
and filling the soul. 

Those who will not be helped by a summary in 
the phraseology used, put into the form of a dia- 
gram, should omit the following: 



DIAGRAM A 



Sinless and inno- 
cent always; nor- 
mal in body and 
spirit. 



Law of loye, or per- 
fect divine law 
known fully in Cott- 
le -. sciousness; moral 
CO perception clear. 

s 

o 

CO Perfect obedience 

^ on an absolute 

Xfx standard and in 

[V] detail in practice. 



BEING 



KNOWL- 
EDGE 



DOING OR 
CONDUCT 



Perfect obedience 
on a relative stand 
ard or in inten 
tion. 



'-■\ 



DOING OR 
CONDUCT 



Not free frorn all ef- 
fects of racial sin; 
some inbred sin (b) re- 
mains; infirmity; one 
effect, inbred sin (a), 
removed. 

Not fully known, not 
in its applications to 
life; raoral discern- 
ment not always clear; 
an effect of the dark- 
ened understanding ; 
the cause of sins of 
ignorance. 

Cannot render ideally 
perfect obedience in 
outward practice, be- 
cause of racial im- 
pairment ; ^ involuntary 
transgressions; blame- 
less but not fault- 
less. Nearly all writers 
^ agree on this. 

Can render this 'per- 
fectly without internal 
warfare, heart united; 
fundamental will or 
' purpose right ; the best 
one can do plus Christ 
and his work justifies, 
sanctifies, and admits 
to heaven. 



w 
r 

CO 

> 
< 



> 



Perfect love or inclination to obey carried out 
without inner opposition would imply that its op- 
posite, the inclination to disobey, had been destroyed. 

It is worthy of notice and helpful to remember 
that in the case of Jesus Christ the relative standard 
and the absolute standard coincide. What he thinks 
is right in conduct and belief is the same as what 
God the Father thinks is right. 



2.(^ AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



DIAGRAM B 



Here i, 2, 3 stand respectively for being, know- 
ing and doing on an absolute standard, which may 
be combined here for convenience, and doing on a 
relative standard. 



JESUS CHRIST 



THE 
FULLY SAVED 

MAN, OR 

THE MAN CON 

TINUOUSLY 

ABIDING 
IN CHRIST. 



THE 

JUSTIFIED 

OR 

REGENERATE 

MAN. 



THE 

UNREGENER- 

ATE 

OR 

WICKED 

MAN. 



I. Sinless and innocent always; mind 
and body entirely free from all effects of sin 
in the race and sin-caused infirmity. 

2 and 3. Law known fully in conscious- 
ness and kept perfectly in intention or on a 
relative standard, and on an absolute stand- 
ard, including all outward practice. 

I- Not altogether recovered from racial 
sin; possibly not from personal sins; some 
inbred sin (b) remains, but diminishing; or, 
moral character in the secondary sense much 
renovated and improving, and constitution 
also. Bent to disobedience — inbred sin (a) 
^ — gone. 
" ^ 2. Law not fully known in detail because 
understanding darkened; not kept on an 
absolute standard; sins of ignorance, 

3. Law kept perfectly in intention or on 
a relative standard; moral character in the 
primary sense right; heart united; full of 
love. 

1. Not so much recovered from racial sin; 
bent to disobedience — inbred sin (a) — not 
fully removed; if so, he would probably be 
in the class above; hence much struggle or 
fighting within to maintain one's ground; 
heart divided; moral character jn the sec- 
ondary^ sense not so much renovated, but 
improving. 

2. Law usually less perfectly known and 
kept; more sins through ignorance; but 
notice, this is largely a matter of bringing 
up, education, and environment. 

3. Law kept perfectly in intention or on 
a relative standard; moral character in the 

^ primary sense right. 

1. Inbred and acquired sin existing and 
increasing; though at some points or manifes- 
tations part (b), not (a), maybe diminishing, 
if the person is striving for high moral at- 
tainments; may be good in spots; sporadic 
actions noble or good; moral character in 
the secondary sense, on the whole, probably 
deteriorating. 

2. Law usually not so well known or 
kept; not seeking light or a high standard. 

3. Law not kept in intention or on a rel- 
ative standard; moral character in the pri- 
mary sense bad or wrong; careless and will- 
ful violations of law, human and divine, in 
various ways and degrees. 



FULL SALVATION 267 

NAMES 

Various names in Scripture and in theology rep- 
resent facets of this diamond or sectors of the 
sphere of this great Hfe. Let no partisan for one 
name think he has it all and that there is nothing of 
truth on the other side of the globe of this rich 
experience. If it had always been represented as a 
second or larger degree of regeneration; if it were 
described as regeneration extended to the limits of 
consciousness, and both before and afterward 
further into the constitution and being, much contro- 
versy might have been avoided. It may well be rep- 
resented in just these terms. Viewed under this 
form that the supreme choice has conquered the 
lower nature and extended its rule largely over 
mind and body, it can be called harmony restored, 
or the rest of faith, or perfect peace and love; the 
same names apply w^hen viewed under the idea of 
dualism resolved into unity. 

The name ''entire sanctification," as old as 
Methodism, is liable to be confused with ''sanctifica- 
tion"; like ''Christian perfection," the term has re- 
quired endless explaining, and has been avoided at 
times by many who wished to present the subject 
without controversy, as it was by the late Dr. S. A. 
Keen. It is employed so often In this volume be- 
cause the usage of a great denomination makes it 
convenient. The particular phrase "entire sanctifi- 
cation" is not found in the Bible, as very many of 
the other names are not; it may be called semi- 
scriptural. "Divine union'* is a name from the older 



268 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

writers. ''Perfect or continuous abiding in Christ'^ 
is a fitting name. It indicates some permanence of 
this state of holiness or Hfe, which is a necessary- 
property or fixed characteristic of it. It emphasizes 
the fact that it is only as one holds to Christ that he 
keeps this kind of life ; it means all that Christ or 
the Spirit is to the Christian at each moment. God's 
children are to be "kept'' or ''preserved" by his 
power. It is not likely to produce or favor the con- 
fusion of thought between this state and ideal moral 
perfection as the term ''Christian perfection" is 
prone to do. While continuous abiding in Christ 
names rather the passive side, perfect love names 
the active side. Love works and gives ; God is love, 
and therefore he "gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." "Full salvation" is a good 
term to emphasize the fact that the conscious life 
or heart is filled with the Spirit of the God of peace, 
who is love, and with inclination toward God and 
his law ; and the opposite inclination consequently is 
crowded out. 

The state of perfect love may be lost; it may be 
regained by faith coupled with penitence and earnest 
continued obedience. If any has truly or thoroughly 
fallen from this state of grace either by settled 
choice or through indifference or drifting under the 
insidiousness of sin, sinful pleasures, business, or 
worldliness, such a one has seriously and deeply 
grieved the Spirit and injured himself. A door of 
mercy is still open for him ; the blood flowing from 
the Saviour's wounds, which he has torn afresh, 



FULL SALVATION 269 

atones for him. He should instantly, penitently and 
carefully seek God again; he may be fully and com- 
pletely restored. 

PROPOSITIONS 

Here are some propositions presented for con- 
sideration, and, if they seem to be true, for general 
adoption and promulgation; if not, for revision so 
that the truth may become apparent to all and be 
finally accepted and adopted. If all Methodist 
preachers can agree on these points, why not work 
together and push them in daily practice in every 
charge, do some mighty team work? If not, will 
some one revise them so we can agree and make 
them effective in life? 

1. May we not largely cut loose from metaphysics 
and speculative theories about the origin of sin in 
describing entire sanctification especially to young 
people? Make the positive side more prominent 
than the negative ; distinguish between the knowable 
part or factors and the unknowable or those parts 
which are not now well known. Distinguish between 
man's part in the work and God's part. Concerning 
the mysterious portion of God's part, the mode or 
the how, we may apply the words of Jesus spoken 
of the new birth in John 3. 8. 

2. Build our theory or conception of this work, 
not on imagination or inexact statements and 
strained Scripture passages, but on observed facts in 
the transformation of the most godly people of all 
centuries and lands and on unperverted Scripture 
statements rationally interpreted. 



270 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

3. On the negative side, full salvation, or perfect 
love, is that work after regeneration v^hich delivers 
one from the remaining inborn propensity to sin in 
his heart, and from that personal addition to this or 
from that carnal mind v^hich hinders one from 
doing right and being right as he understands right. 

4. On the positive side in the blessing of perfect 
love the Holy Spirit fills the heart, inclines one's 
life to righteousness instead of evil, and enables one 
to love God with all his heart and his neighbor as 
himself in all his motives. From lack of knowl- 
edge or ability to carry out his purpose, his outward 
conduct may not always manifest his love to his 
neighbor as objective righteousness or the perfect 
law demands. 

5. In this state there must be no voluntary or 
intentional sin; there must be a certain amount of 
skill in carrying into execution the love that is in the 
heart; and there ought to be an ever-increasing 
knowledge of the divine will in practical ethics. 

6. Great variety from very high to low ideals and 
ethical standards, and variety in attainments in 
knowledge and in moral practices, will be found 
among the possessors of perfect love in different 
ages and nations and under varied educational and 
social advantages. This state is therefore a con- 
dition of relative holiness, not absolute or ideal holi- 
ness without fault or infirmity. 

7. In order to attain this life a conviction of want, 
proper instruction, entire consecration or dedication 
of one's self and all he possesses to God, obedience, 
and faith are necessary ; this is man's part. Cleans- 



FULL SALVATION 271 

ing from all remaining sinward tendency and filling 
with the Spirit is God's part, and is usually in- 
stantaneous. This is usually preceded and should 
always be followed by a gradual work throughout 
life, during which subsequent baptisms with the 
Spirit, enduements with power, and special uplifts 
and enlightenments may occur. 

A PERSONAL PROPOSITION 

To promote the work of God a high moral and 
religious standard must be preached, and godly men 
must live up to it; the New Testament standard of 
ethics and the life of love must be crowded with 
mighty pressure upon men's hearts as a rule for 
public as well as private life. This high moral stand- 
ard is to be determined by the Word of God and the 
practice of the Christ explained by the best scholar- 
ship of the day, and not to be left to individual ca- 
price or unskilled interpretation. 

In the light of this standard, which is our best 
conception of the perfect will of God, the two great 
commandments according to Jesus, applied to the 
conduct of men to-day, men's personal sins must be 
pointed out plainly and specifically (petty or fini- 
cal points in dispute not referred to, but practices 
acknowledged wrong by nearly all enlightened men), 
the particular person confronted with his specific 
act, and all offenders and transgressors, great and 
small, dealt with lovingly and tenderly, yet without 
abatement of God's claim, and then a personal Sav- 
iour must be presented. These last two points 
characterize all that is called preaching in the book 



2^2 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

of the Acts of the Apostles. Find the right Hfe; it 
is a life in harmony with all the laws of God and 
one's being, physical and spiritual, individual and 
social. Live this life; persuade others you are right 
and get them to live it. Bossuet said : ''Jesus Christ 
came into the world to overthrow all that pride has 
established in it; thence it is that his policy is in 
direct opposition to that of the age." 

Brothers in the ministry, Christian workers and 
readers, are you willing to do what is set forth in 
this personal paragraph, whether you agree with 
the preceding propositions or not, with all the 
power and vigor and prudence that in you lies, 
aided by God's grace and without regard to personal 
consequences or loss ? With this high moral stand- 
ard and the self-sacrificing lives that uphold and 
propagate it wanting, no genuine Christianity can 
be promoted in our country. Will each Methodist 
preacher who reads this peruse again slowly with 
heart-searching and prayer the rules for the preach- 
er's conduct and the vows of his ordination? The 
answer to the question a few lines above is to be 
made to God. The answer might be No ; why is it 
No? The answer may be Yes, or Yes with vehe- 
mence and singleness of eye ; and at great personal 
sacrifice, even to the enduring of the cross. Or 
the answer might be ja vague acquiescence, lazy, 
lukewarm, and luxurious. This is the worst answer. 
In the words of Faber: 

** The headstrong world, it presseth hard 
Upon the church full oft; 
O, then how easily thou turn'st 
The hard ways into soft." 



FULL SALVATION 273 

There is no space here for a lengthy exhortation ; 
but it is burning in the heart and soul of the writer. 
He would like to put right here in a few lines the 
whole force of the words and lives of modern 
prophets and preachers like Bishops Janes and 
Simpson, like Spurgeon and Phillips Brooks, and 
others; the exhortations of godly men and women 
like Cookman, Keen, Phoebe Palmer, F. B. Meyer, 
and others; and the burning words of Paul and 
Peter, and the self-sacrifice of the Christ himself. 
Let these set on fire every drop of blood in the lover 
of God; let his whole frame and spirit, glowing 
with the divine passion, be bursting with a desire 
genuinely Pauline and unquenchable, to bring men 
at once into as perfect likeness to Jesus Christ as is 
possible now. 



CHAPTER IX 

Errors 

A HIGHER Christian life, fervent and zealous, has 
always been beset by certain temptations and errors 
which seem not to flourish with a colder and more 
torpid religious life. If we may compare perfect love 
to a beautiful fawn, there are two bloodthirsty 
hounds pursuing, one always hanging at either flank. 
Wesley and Fletcher had much trouble with these 
dogs, but they could not slay them. Both these errors 
are often connected with laziness of mind and body, 
and both promote fanaticism. Under their old names 
they are not familiar to us ; one of the very words 
which denoted an evil state two centuries ago now 
denotes almost always a good state. The old names 
are "enthusiasm," now meaning a desirable quality, 
and ''Antinomianism." The last signifies opposition 
to the moral law. While aiming at a true freedom 
it runs into an unrestrained freedom or license 
teaching release from all obligation to keep the law. 
It offers salvation by faith without works in an 
erroneous form against which James wrote his 
epistle. The doctrine was that Christ kept the 
perfect law for us; we cannot keep it, and therefore 
we need not try to keep it, simply trust Christ and 
be saved. In its extreme form this view altogether 
abrogates the moral law as a rule of life. The 
truth in this teaching is that men are saved through 

274 



ERRORS 275 

the atoning sacrifice of Christ, not by works. 
Nevertheless, if a man Hves any length of time after 
he is justified by faith, God wants some good works, 
or fruits of the Spirit, to show themselves in him. 
This error lies in a false view of the atonement 
and of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. 
In modern language the error might be expressed 
by saying, instead of Antinomianism, a failure to 
keep the commandments, or incorrect ethical con- 
duct; a lack of principle or high sense of honor. 
Sins in this line are very common against the 
second great commandment, ''Love thy neighbor 
as thyself." Wesley says, ''This may steal upon 
you in a thousand forms, so that you cannot be too 
watchful against it.'' 

Christ's test of love is keeping the commandments, 
not one's emotional states or experience. Naturally 
the tendency is very strong in people "fervent in 
spirit" to exalt the "experience" or the emotional 
states above everything, even above outward con- 
duct. No amount of experience or rapture makes 
people right with God and man unless they strive to 
keep the commandments. Conversely, if people do 
keep the commandments in the right sense, as Jesus, 
not the Pharisees, interpreted them, no lack of 
emotional excitement can prevent their acceptance 
with God, if they trust Christ for pardon. A form 
of this error and of the following is seen in unwill- 
ingness to work to promote the cause of God, or to 
give to missions and the church. 'Tf God wants 
the world converted he can do it without me ; if the 
church building needs repairing, let some one else 



276 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

give, I am not able. If they want anything in my 
line I will give it/' What is your Hne? ''My line 
consists in praying, exhorting, and shouting." A 
bad form of this error is seen in slowness in paying 
debts as well as in carelessness in incurring them; 
this, of course, is very visible and very provoking 
to the '"world." A grocer meets a brother who 
makes a great profession of holiness, enough for a 
township, and asks for ten dollars on his account at 
the store, of rather long standing; he replies, "Bless 
the Lord, bless the Lord, brother, I am so happy; 
my mind is not now on earthly things." And his 
promises of payment are few and unkept. One 
class or sect has the good works minus the experi- 
ence; another class, or even a denomination, too 
often has the experience — some experience or emo- 
tional effervescence — minus the good works. What 
"God hath joined together let no man put asunder." 
God loves a holy life that is whole and neither 
fragmentary nor fractious. 

Enthusiasm literally means in God or God in us ; 
it had formerly both a good and a bad meaning. To- 
day it generally means an ardent or burning de- 
votion to a given cause or person. In the eighteenth 
century and before it was often used in a bad sense, 
meaning a sort of possession by Deity, a false in- 
spiration, "a daughter of pride," some visionary ex- 
pectation of or dependence on divine power, which 
dispenses with reason. The error, as it commonly 
appears at the present time, would not be named 
enthusiasm, but a temporary dethronement of 
reason, or a greater or less subjugation of reason 



ERRORS 2TJ 

by emotion; it expects the end without the means, 
and ignores the law of cause and effect. It may be 
the arbitrary rule of caprice or magic instead of 
sound judgment and common sense. The subject 
of this error often mistakes all his impressions for 
something direct from the Holy Spirit, and some- 
times claims inspiration equal to that of the sacred 
Scriptures. In the words of Warburton, the malady 
is "that temper of mind in which the imagination has 
got the better of the judgment." It shows itself 
often as a foolish and even idle dependence on God; 
as if one should say, /'I need not work, God will 
raise the crop. I need not strive to overcome sin, 
just let the Lord do it.'' Or, it may be, this advice 
is given : "Do not take any medicine or use means 
to promote health; just leave it all to the Lord and 
trust him." 

Many run into vagaries in theory and practice by 
mistaking their impressions for the promptings of 
the Spirit. A man said at the close of a religious 
service that he had grieved the Spirit by not getting 
upon a table in the church and dancing during the 
meeting; the next time the Spirit prompted him he 
intended to do it. Another says that he is called by 
the Spirit to kill his child; God will raise it up; it 
will be for the religious good of the community by 
turning many to the Lord. Then he has done so. 
Both these forms of conduct rest on the same logical 
principle and method ; the silly act is wrong as well 
as the crime. Teachers of holiness who will not 
instruct people properly or abate such ideas are 
certainly injuring the cause of true religion. 



278 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Some are finding God manifested in religious 
meetings only in the unusual, abnormal, or mirac- 
ulous visitations or in prostrations. They are 
like some in Paul's time who thought it a marvelous 
thing to speak in an unknown tongue and forgot 
that love is a greater gift. Some consider that the 
prayer meeting is not alive, and the Spirit of the 
Lord is not present, unless some one is visibly and 
powerfully moved to extravagant action or loses his 
strength. It is a fatal error, one that is rapidly 
undermining the faith of some and bringing dis- 
aster in other ways, to find God only in the mirac- 
ulous and the extraordinary in nature and life, 
only in great catastrophes and in the unexplained 
events; the territory where God dwells for such 
is diminishing with every advance of science. 
It is better to find God in the normal, in the regular 
processes of nature, life, and mind; then added 
knowledge increases in us faith and admiration for 
the wisdom and glory of God. These and similar 
views are remains of an age when there was no 
science and little belief in the universality and 
validity of nature's laws. They incline to the arbi- 
trary, to the world of magic and the occult, and are 
found chiefly among the untutored and are dis- 
appearing with the diffusion of knowledge. 

In order to abate certain evils of enthusiasm it 
might be well for a time in some parts of the country 
not to make so much of profession as some, but to 
lay more emphasis upon attainment. Profession has 
run ahead of attainment in some quarters, especially 
where it is urged strongly upon people of im- 



ERRORS 279 

deveIoj)ed minds in particular words and set phrases. 
Now it might be helpful to have attainment run 
ahead of profession a while until public confidence 
in some regions is restored. Watered stock in holi- 
ness is worse than in a railroad corporation, and 
there it is bad enough. The repeating of phrases by 
intelligent adults, parrot-like, under pressure has 
little of religious value, especially when it is done 
apparently with slight comprehension of the terms 
used. 

Dr. Mudge mentions three evils: a tendency to 
schism, censoriousness, and perversion of Scripture. 
Lying at the base of censoriousness there is fre- 
quently an inherited vein of conceit or egotism ; or, 
if it is acquired, it often seems to be a boundless 
acquisition. Because a person perceives a work of 
God accomplished in his soul and can maintain his 
experience as valid and true against arguments of 
skeptics, it does not entitle him to contradict what 
the skeptic may know about astronomy or archae- 
ology, or what Christian scholars may know about 
textual criticism. He may well be modest outside 
of his experience. Those not converted or in a 
lower spiritual condition may teach the fully saved 
man many useful truths, facts and practices; such 
is the plain teaching of John Wesley.^ For a fuller 
description of evils attending the higher life and 
many wise counsels on the subject, the reader is 
referred to the twenty-second chapter of the work 
Love Enthroned, by that prince of careful writers 
on this theme, Daniel Steele. 

- Plain Account, p. 44. 



CHAPTER X 

Growth After Full Salvation 

This subject is practically an unplowed field; 
much knowledge has been desired here by the author 
in other years, but little has been found. Nearly 
all that is written about entire sanctification leads 
up to the attainment of the blessing and stops with 
the simple remark that there is more growth beyond. 
The experience of perfect love should be as clearly 
dififerentiated from what lies beyond it in the 
Christian's progress as from what precedes it; only 
in this way can it stand out distinctly as an ex- 
perience by itself. Many writers come to this point 
with careful statements, then run off into a rhapsody 
of feeling and abandon logic and previous statements 
and mingle with their doctrine of Christian per- 
fection elements of absolute perfection, which in 
earlier chapters of their book was affirmed to be 
unattainable in this life. This is both confusing 
and discouraging to the learner. Entire sanctifica- 
tion is a technical phrase ; it is not synonymous with 
completed or ended sanctification. This great epoch, 
this glorious victory in the soul, does not include 
everything the Lord will ever do for his child. It is 
no finality. Growth, or sanctification, as defined in 
this book and in common usage, need not end till 
life In the body ends ; and after this, growth in the 
knowledge of God, as we believe, and in the capac- 

280 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 281 

ity to love and serve him belongs to the immortal 
spirit. 

In general it may be affirmed: After attaining 
Christian perfection v^ork toward absolute or ideal 
perfection as a man made in the image of God, not 
the absolute perfection of God which is, we suppose, 
forever unattainable by finite spirits. After reach- 
ing goodness on a relative standard, perfect love, 
work for it on an absolute standard, that is, perfect 
love in right objective expression; strive to realize 
God's perfect will in outward conduct as well as in 
motive. If this is not done, the good motive has 
little value and will not last. God desires both the 
inward rightness and the outward realization of it. 
An important part of this growth will consist also in 
getting a higher ideal of the Christ life in all its 
extent and detail, a better knowledge by means of 
the Scriptures of the will of God as applied to present 
problems and daily needs, of God's method of sav- 
ing the world, and of the meaning of salvation, 
individual and social. A right ethical standard as 
understood to-day will lead the holy man to consider 
his duty and work as a member of society ; he will 
not obtain his full perfection as a Christian in isola- 
tion, either in ecstasy or passive contemplation, or 
solely in the prayers and joyous shouts of the great 
congregation. He must fulfill his part as a member 
of a social organism and do his duty in the political 
and in the industrial world. This touches a side of 
life too large to be taken up in this book ; the com- 
mon duties here are included in the fulfillment of the 
command, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 



282 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

It becomes evident that perfect or complete sub- 
jective holiness in the widest reach of thought, God's 
ownership of all, God over all and in all, is a large 
idea, as broad as civilization, more comprehensive 
than human life or being. It includes many features 
and factors and ramifies into all conduct and into 
all social life and all human and divine relations 
which concern personality. This, we believe, is a 
biological view of holiness ; it is not a narrow affair 
fitting each person to an iron bedstead and denoting 
in detail the same condition and status in everybody, 
and all transacted and finished up in a few minutes 
in a religious service in church or grove. But it is 
a rich, luxuriant, tropical, and varied life. It is a 
Spirit-filled life crowned by Christ, laying all things 
at his feet and exhaling his spirit into all of life, 
private, domestic, commercial, municipal, and na- 
tional. 

TEMPERAMENT 

The large part played by temperament in religion 
has not been sufficiently considered. Temperament 
or fundamental disposition and qualities form the 
mold which determines how one receives and de- 
velops religious teaching and the influence of the 
Holy Spirit. Even prophets and apostles received 
into their type of mind the revelation which God 
gave them, reformed it, and gave it expression 
modified and colored according to the personality of 
each. Though it covers largely an unknown field 
of research, temperament could not be ignored in 
treating this subject. Investigation shows that all 
the ''characteristic experiences of the individual are 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 2S3 

built upon a solid and enduring basis of common 
relations which tmiversally maintain themselves be- 
tween certain types of physical constitution and 
activity and certain corresponding types of character 
and action of the mind/' One can control to some 
extent the number and character of the sense im- 
pressions he receives, the images of memory and 
fancy, and his trains of thought. ''But one cannot 
determine one's age or sex or race, including parent- 
age and prenatal and infantile environment ; nor can 
one choose one's temperament." These statical re- 
lations between the bodily life and the mental life 
are deep-seated and enduring and have a vital bear- 
ing upon spiritual growth. The religious life plows 
deep and in time works changes in these relations. 
Wundt and others quoted in George T. Ladd's Ele- 
ments of Physiological Psychology (pp. 575-577) 
describe four temperaments ; and there may be vari- 
ous combinations of these. In the mental move- 
ments of every person there are two constant factors 
— strength and speed. The various activities, affec- 
tions, or reactions of the mind are either strong and 
quick or strong and slow; or weak and quick or 
weak and slow. They may be represented thus : 





strong 


weak 


quick 


choleric 


sanguine 


slow 


melancholic 


phlegmatic 



*'The quick temperaments are directed rather to- 
ward the present, the slow toward the future." ''The 
choleric and phlegmatic are temperaments of action 
rather; while the sanguine and melancholic are 



284 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

temperaments of feeling.'' Temperament is found 
in other animals than man. 

Underlying temperament, according to Dr. 
George, is the "interior relation that exists between 
perception and the affections of the mind." A per- 
son may receive impressions through the senses 
quickly and react quickly or the opposite; he may 
receive impressions weakly and react weakly or the 
opposite. According to Lotze the following points 
determine temperament: ^^i) The differences, in 
kind and degree, of excitability for external im- 
pressions; (2) the greater or less extent to which 
the ideas excited reproduce others; (3) the rapidity 
with which the ideas vary; (4) the strength with 
which feelings of pleasure and pain are associated 
with them; (5) finally, the ease with which ex- 
ternal actions associate with these inner states." 

The choleric temperament is marked by a large 
degree of susceptibility to sensation, which is natur- 
ally accompanied by feelings of attraction or dread 
toward the object of sensation; Lotze says it is also 
marked by a ''one-sided receptivity and great energy 
in single directions." 'Tt is therefore distinguished 
by diminished susceptibility to excitement, but great 
force and endurance in reaction when feeling has 
once been aroused. Its fine effect is an apparent 
moral steadiness of character ; its uncomely effect is 
obstinate and narrow perseverance in a path once 
entered upon, even when reasons exist for deviating 
from or abandoning it. Its time of most natural 
development is in adult manhood," but it may be 
found among children. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 285 

"The greater the attention given to the objects 
before the mind, the greater are the emotions of 
hope or fearful expectation which the objects ex- 
cite" ; the emphasis on this relation gives the melan- 
cholic temperament. It is characterized " 'by special 
receptivity for the feeling of the value of all possi- 
ble relations/ but is indifferent toward bare matter 
of fact. Here a lively appreciation of the harmonies 
and discords of surrounding objects may be com- 
bined with little inclination for hard work.'' Lotze 
calls this the sentimental temperament and says it 
shows itself in science among those who ''spend 
their ingenuity in constantly devising some new 
dress for the knowledge they have acquired; and 
in art by dealing with 'isolated physical movements 
of emotion' without being capable of grasping them 
and combining them together into a coherent whole. 
It is distinctive of youth, and in its most pleasant 
form of those who retain a youthful disposition to 
the later years of life." 

"The sanguine temperament is distinguished by 
great rapidity of change and lively excitability. The 
greater the mind's wakefulness to impressions, the 
greater is also its susceptibility to the feelings of 
pleasure or pain which are attached to the impres- 
sions. This indicates a permanent excess of the 
general capacity for reciprocal excitement among 
all the different physical states and an excessive 
sensitiveness of the soul to all external stimuli. It 
is natural in children and uncivilized tribes; it is 
advantageous to the beginnings of culture and pre- 
vents the establishment of narrow notions and at- 



286 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

tachment to ideas acquired accidentally. Adults 
who are strongly marked by this temperament make 
the impression of immaturity, of being 'grown-up 
children/ " 

'The phlegmatic temperament, natural to ad- 
vanced age, is distinguished by slightly varied and 
slow but not necessarily weak reactions. Sluggish- 
ness in youth and equanimity in old age may both 
result from the action of this adjustment of the 
feelings and impressions to external stimuli and the 
train of ideas." One can readily see that certain 
general features are comprehended in temperament, 
but the details cannot be closely given. 

Dr, George claims that certain races are char- 
acterized by some one of these temperaments. ''The 
French are sanguine, the English melancholy, the 
Spanish and Italian choleric, the Germans phleg- 
matic.'' And on a larger scale "the Caucasian race 
is sanguine, the Mongolian melancholic, the Negro 
phlegmatic, the Malaysian choleric.'' "Professor 
Wundt makes the penetrating observations that 
pessimism generally rests upon an individual pecu- 
liarity of temperament ; and that the true art of life 
consists in not having one temperament, but in com- 
bining them all. 'One should be sanguine amid the 
petty sufferings and joys of daily life, melancholy in 
the more serious hours of life's more important 
events, choleric toward impressions that fetter 
one's profounder interests, phlegmatic in the execu- 
tion of the resolves that have been reached.' " With 
the last proposition an American does not wish to 
agree, if the resolves are useful and righteous. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 287 

According to our best light the sins of past gen- 
erations and our personal sins have thrown tempera- 
ment out of proper equilibrium. The grace of God 
working through the years in the life of the wholly 
surrendered man changes the temperament, modifies 
the natural disposition, and brings harmony; it 
readjusts the disciple's being nearer to that balance 
which his Master had. This is most glorious and 
soul-inspiring knowledge. "The law of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death." Divine heredity overcomes 
human heredity. 

Temperament must be recognized, we repeat, in 
any scheme or description of the normal religious 
life. Religion as truth and law appeals powerfully 
to me; religion in the form of dogma appeals 
strongly to some. In his Apologia (p. 49) Newman 
says : *'From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the 
fundamental principle of my religion. I know no 
other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any 
other sort of religion ; religion, as a mere sentiment, 
IS a dream and a mockery."^ The whole nature, 
apparently, of this well-known churchman craved 
truth in clear outlines interpreted and enforced by a 
central authority. Some people cannot appreciate 
dogma ; it does not appeal to them or help them to 
God. A simple parable or a story from life brings 
the Saviour nearer to them than any discourse on the 
atonement or account of the Person of Christ. Those 
who do not live much in the realm of abstract 



^ Quoted by C. C. Hall in Universal Elements of the Christian Re- 
ligion, p. 80. 



288 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

thought, children and unciviHzed tribes, are not 
much interested in rehgion under a bookish, rea- 
soned, or dogmatic form. Some people cannot have 
visions, ecstasies, and wonderful transporting ex- 
periences. Such seek full salvation oftentimes and 
do not think they find it. Some care not for these 
highly emotional states nor for the to them barren 
discussions of dogmatists just mentioned; but they 
will work for Christ; they are the so-called practical 
or calculating people. They figure up how much 
coal will be needed by the church during the winter 
and try to get it. Sometimes they want to cut extra 
meetings short because these will require more than 
the estimated amount. Like William Booth, such 
say or feel : *'One pot of hot gruel, two petticoats, 
and a wool blanket are worth a lake full of tears.'' 
Now, as Professor Coe says, in agreement with 
Professor Bowne, though we had considered this 
subject before their publications appeared, the emo- 
tional people, suggestible people, have had the credit 
of being very religious, ahead of others. Those who 
are devout, thoroughly obedient to God and faithful 
in keeping the commandments, must be recognized 
as just as truly religious as though they could shout 
or pray with great unction. Nevertheless they must 
not be ashamed or too timid to confess their Saviour 
before men by word as well as by deed. Quiet, 
faithful people are not always to be reckoned on a 
low plane of piety or merely moral. In matters of 
truthfulness and honor they may stand very high; 
and some easily passing into trances and prostra- 
tions would be marked very low in the ethical scale 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 289 

when it comes to fulfilling financial and other obliga- 
tions. Some very voluble, chatty people, who have 
been accounted especially religious, can tell more 
than they know or feel; some lovers of Jesus, like 
Bartholomew or Simon Zelotes, cannot tell as much 
as they feel and are always in the background. God 
has a place for all these kinds and varieties of 
nature, but the church has not always been able to 
find room for them. 

What a variety Jesus had among the twelve disci- 
ples, though so few families were represented! 
There were three pairs of brothers among eleven 
disciples. Peter, James, and John stood close to him. 
Peter the radical was the progressive one, the most 
progressive, probably, of the twelve, by spells. At a 
later day Paul was the radical. John was the mystic, 
the man of deep feeling and love of communion 
with better spirits, of poetic delicacy of touch; 
James was the conservative, extremely conservative 
and somewhat practical. Then there was Philip the 
practical man, Matthew the bookkeeper, whose 
bookkeeping training or propensities revealed them- 
selves in his Gospel; who possibly never shouted 
much but could trace the fulfillment of prophecy on 
every page. Then there was Thomas the doubter, 
the rationalist; faithful at heart, but with critical 
ability in excess of constructive ability. He looked 
on the dark side of things, hoped ( ?) for the worst; 
but he said: ''Let us go with him that we may die 
with him" — loyal to the core. He did not propose to 
be led astray or be imposed upon by any fake or 
ghosts; he was the examiner of the wounds, the 



290 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

critic desiring first-hand evidence. Then there 
seemed to be the usual number of colorless apostles ; 
their personality has not been imprinted on enough 
to come down to us. Their names are not in the 
New Testament as the author of a book or founder 
of a church, but they have not been forgotten by 
their Master. Their names, we notice, are on the 
twelve foundations of the Eternal City. ^'The wall 
of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the 
names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." Men 
you never heard of after the resurrection except as 
casting a ballot or lot, but God did not forget them. 
There is room for all in the great heart of God. Do 
we take in the comprehensiveness of true religion? 

Dr. Hillis says: "In every age there are two 
classes in the church: one emphasizes knowledge 
and culture; the other emphasizes affection and 
sentiment. Outside the church stands a third class 
whose emphasis has been upon good deeds, conduct, 
and character. There are many ways of being 
religious : the glory of a wheat field is one, the glory 
of an orange grove another; there is one moral 
glory of the factory, another of the office; one of 
the schoolroom, another of the home; one virtue 
differs from another virtue in glory. Some Howard 
chooses self-abnegation and becomes a reformer 
toward the bottom of society; some Gladstone, 
choosing self-enrichment and the molding of states, 
becomes a reformer toward the top of society."^ 

The great denominations have a right to exist 
founded on temperament as well as on theological 

1 Influence of Christ in Modern Life, p. 318, 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 291 

dogmas. Some one says, ''The Congregationalists 
stand in a general way for progressive intellect ; the 
Presbyterians for conservative intellect; the Metho- 
dists and Baptists for emotion ; the Episcopalians for 
culture and historical and social prestige." In large 
cities people are free, where family and social con- 
siderations are not allowed to prevent, to join them- 
selves to that regiment of the Lord's great army 
where they can feel most content, be most effective, 
and receive the instruction and help best adapted to 
them. 

RATIONALISM, PIETISM, MYSTICISM 

Religion takes in the whole man, not intellect 
alone or sensibilities alone. Balance or proportion 
in our beliefs and conduct is the quality most needed. 
Errors in religion come from overemphasizing some 
doctrine, or omitting another, from lack of propor- 
tion or due emphasis upon all the truths of Chris- 
tianity. When a sect is started to advocate some 
one truth it is likely to run that into the ground ; its 
votaries themselves finally become tired of it and 
seek to feed on other truths in after years and roam 
in larger pastures. Vicious practices in religion 
come from the excess of some good quality or mode 
of action or one idea pushed to the extreme. The 
object of later stages of growth is to avoid fragmen- 
tariness and approach as nearly as possible to the 
one perfect man in Christ. Take, for example, two 
fundamental phases of thought, God-consciousness 
and world-consciousness. The mixing of these two, 
says Luthardt, gives us pantheism or polytheism; 
undue separation of the two, deism; the crowding 



292 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

out of this world-consciousness produces mysticism; 
the crowding out of God-consciousness is atheism. 
We need to learn to give proper room and right in- 
fluence in our thought and conduct to that element 
we call God-consciousness and to that element we 
call world-consciousness. 

Great disputes or controversies have arisen as to 
the seat of religion in man; is it in his intellect or 
feelings or will? Religion is not chiefly in any one 
faculty, it fills and rules the whole personality. 
Dr. W. F. Warren in a little book in German on 
Systematic Theology says: *'If any one of these 
three factors gets too much stress on it, a false or 
abnormal religion is developed. If we place too 
much importance on knowledge, we get a one-sided 
and sick orthodoxy; the creed is then of great im- 
portance, the life of little moment. If this view of 
religion which makes everything depend on knowl- 
edge rejects revelation or miracle^ we have rational- 
ism. If it mixes man, God, and nature, we have 
pantheism. If we lay too much stress on the will, 
we have pietism; but if this objects to the truth of 
revelation, we have only morality or Pharisaism. 
Pietism is a twin error with orthodoxy; it does not 
often appear, but comes when men try to save them- 
selves by good works.'* A healthy mysticism would 
be the remedy. There was a development of pietism 
in Spener's time ; it was a protest against scholastic 
theology and dead ritualism coupled with looseness 
of conduct. A useful and worthy effort at first to 
awaken and purify a dead church, it afterward de- 
generated. Pietism is true piety carried to extreme ; 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 293 

a finical exactness applied to all the little details of 
life. In its degenerate form this spirit was one of 
the faults of the Pharisaic system in the time of 
Christ. Morbidly conscientious people are liable to 
this error ; the opposite extreme is on the one hand 
Antinomianism and on the other hand some extreme 
phases of mysticism. 

When one lays too much stress on the feelings he 
gets mysticism as an error. This is more common 
and will be referred to further on. Mysticism is the 
opposite pole from rationalism; where rationalism 
prevails in the church many pious persons, not fed 
by dialectics and on logical syllogisms alone, with- 
draw into the secret recesses of their souls to com- 
mune with God. Such mystics in Germany were 
a protest against the excessive and arid use of the 
reason. In true religion, however, there is an ele- 
ment of mysticism; but the typical mystic's love is 
too inactive and passive. 

Rev. John Watson says: "Religion has three 
places of abode: in the reason, which is theology; 
in the conscience, which is ethics ; in the heart, which 
is quietism." Quietism is one of the many phases of 
mysticism or a very near relative. The favorite 
text of those worshipers is, ''Be still and know that 
I am God''; ''Stand still and see the salvation of 
God." Contemplation and passivity characterize 
them. They are at the opposite extreme from the 
strenuous life. The atmosphere of American life 
is not congenial to them; probably some of their 
spirit would be a good offset to the rush of our 
pushing age. 



294 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

On taking a large look at the religious life of 
man and at the history of the Christian church, in- 
cluding the Jewish church, three permanent forms or 
phases of development may be seen. These three 
tendencies, large, not usually with clear lines of 
demarcation, may be called formalism, rationalism 
or skepticism, and mysticism. The same are also 
found in heathen religions. These three are often 
represented by different parties or sects within one 
religious or national body. We mention as general 
examples of this phenomenon the great parties of 
Judaism : 

1. The Pharisees, the separate ones; orthodox, 
self-righteous, correct in creed, austere in practice, 
haughty, unsympathetic, and formal ; they would be 
saved by good works. 

2. The Sadducees, less numerous, the rationalists, 
or skeptical party, rich, worldly-minded, aristocrat- 
ic ; proud rulers who would be accounted as having 
no religion by the third class, which is not a party 
but a mystic and ascetic order or brotherhood. 

3. The Essenes were about four thousand in num- 
ber. They lived mostly in the regions about the 
Dead Sea and in the wilderness of En-gedi. They 
held property in common, wore white garments, re- 
jected animal food, oaths, slavery, and usua^'y mar- 
riage, and lived in the utmost simplicity, hoping to 
attain a greater degree of purity and holiness. 
Allied to their form of life was John the Baptist. 
Jesus was not like them ; he came '^eating and drink- 
ing/' 

Philip Schaff finds a rough parallel to these three 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 295 

in the schools of Greek philosophy in this order: 
the Stoic, Epicurean, and Platonic. He also men- 
tions three corresponding sects among the Moham- 
medans : the Sunnis, who are, like the Pharisees, 
traditionalists ; the Shiahs, who adhere to the Koran ; 
the Sufis, numerous in Persia, who are mystics and 
seek the true religion in "internal divine sensation.'' 
Omar Khayyam, author of the Rubaiyat, was a 
Mohammedan poet and philosopher of Persia. 
Some of his quatrains are in a mystical strain; in 
others he attacked the "wild ravings" of the Sufi 
mystics. The Sufis are often despised and per- 
secuted by other Mohammedans. 

Pardon a digression on the phrase "internal divine 
sensation." Though it springs from the heart of a 
Mohammedan in far-off Persia, is not that a phrase 
peculiarly acceptable to the entirely sanctified man 
of the Wesleyan type? How it shows unity in 
human nature, the longing for God, a being never 
satisfied in himself till he finds God! The deep in 
the human calleth unto the deep in the divine. There 
is in God a self-revelation and self-giving to satisfy 
this fundamental need in man for an unseen friend. 
And the union of the two, the pouring of the life 
of God into man and the glad reception by man of 
God and the devotion of himself to God, forms the 
essence of the true and eternal religion. This yearn- 
ing is like a great tide or swell heaving in human 
breasts, like the swell of the ocean, moving away 
from sin and back to God. It is a watermark which 
shows that the spirit of man was God-breathed and 
is unspeakably and eternally restless till it finds rest 



296 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

in God. In the East the cure for this want, as they 
think, is absorption into the All, into Brahm, into 
the divine; the sole cure is escape from the evil of 
individual existence and a struggling will and natural 
lust. In Christianity it is mystical union, not loss 
of individuality, but harmony of will in its free 
choice, and at last of the nature with the Creator and 
Saviour. The holiness movement will never die out 
until the soul dies. There is in it a kernel of this 
life of God, this something which the world, a ritual, 
formalism, or dogma cannot satisfy, a thirst for the 
divine. Satisfy this want with Jesus Christ, with 
Him who fills all things, the fullness of all in all, 
keep this phase of the religious life within right 
bounds and proportions in the being, and it is the 
greatest thing in the world; it is pure love. It is 
Methodism's specialty to spread this. Methodism 
ought to be at it with tremendous and undivided 
energy, not on the side track inventing societies and 
brotherhoods, or raising money as its chief concern, 
or devising new or tinkering at old ecclesiastico- 
mechanical contrivances, or oiling the sacred ma- 
chinery of the temple, or pushing pious politics. 

Among the religionists of India, as in Buddhism, 
the same three classes appear, with mystics in 
abundance. In the Christian church we have the 
same lines of development. These are mentioned to 
show great tendencies in human nature, deep veins 
of thought and feeling; an excess in any of these 
directions leads to the abnormal. To acquire and 
keep proper balance in the knowledge and love of 
God is the problem for the man made perfect in 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 297 

love. All the errors of faith and practice can be 
found in the Christian church somewhere; if one 
knew enough church history he could tell people 
where they would come out, if they followed a 
certain heresy or vicious practice ; for all of these 
have been tried somewhere along the course of the 
centuries. There is no use in trying over again the 
old experiments which have proved failures. 

MYSTICISM 

A few points about mysticism must be mentioned 
to give the young reader an idea of what is meant 
by it and the broad field of emotional life included 
under it. The word is allied to ''mystery'' as used 
in Paul's epistles; ''mysticism" and the word 
"mystic" were used of the knowledge of those in- 
itiated into the Greek secret societies, as the Eleusin- 
ian mysteries. Mysticism is inclusive of so wide 
varieties of philosophical speculation and religious 
thought and life, heathen and Christian, that it can- 
not well be defined. At its root it is a longing to 
know God and be in union with him ; it reaches after 
God through the feelings, through prayer and con- 
templation, rather than by research into nature or by 
logical thought. It does not use the senses or reason 
for attaining divine truth, but immediately by faith, 
feeling, or inspiration it will know God. Science or 
philosophy attempts to know ultimate reality or God 
through investigation, abstract thought, or reason- 
ing; skepticism denies that truth is attainable 
through human faculties; some common forms of 
mysticism hold that truth or God may be known 



298 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

not through science or logical processes, but only 
by intuition or contemplation, the vision of the 
divine. Professor Seth says: ''Mysticism appears 
in connection with the endeavor of the human mind 
to grasp the divine essence or the ultimate reality of 
things and to enjoy the blessedness of actual com- 
munion with the Highest. The first is the philo- 
sophic side of mysticism; the second, its religious 
side. The thought that is most intensely present 
with the mystic is that of a supreme or pervading 
and indwelling power, in whom all things are one." 
"The mystic loses his clear consciousness in obscure, 
arbitrary, ascetic, and ecstatic concepts, or rather in 
a passive experience of the divine; moral piety 
would be the remedy.'' Stowell calls mysticism the 
setting up of personal feelings as the standard of 
truth or the rule of action. Mystics usually ascribe 
this inward standard of truth and rule of action to 
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. ''Mystical views 
may be regarded under different aspects, as, specula- 
tive, contemplative, imaginative, practical." Mys- 
ticism is frequently pantheistic ; it always maintains 
the possibility of direct intercourse with God. The 
doctrine of the witness of the Holy Spirit to the 
regeneration and entire sanctification of a soul is a 
mystical doctrine. The Friends, or Quakers, with 
the inner light, the Moravians with the witness of 
the Spirit, and others with similar teaching incline 
to this phase of religion. There is a legitimate mys- 
ticism or use of the feelings in religion. There is 
no true and living religion without some degree of 
mysticism. "Prayer" and "love" are mystical words. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 290 

Two persons never hold converse without looking 
over the chasm of the infinite and mystical. The 
Gospel of John sets forth more clearly than other 
New Testament books the mystical side of religion 
in such sayings as these: ''Thou in me, and I in 
thee"; ''Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch 
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the 
vine ; so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. . . . 
For apart from me ye can do nothing." The same 
spirit breathes also in Paul's statement, "I live ; yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me." The manifestation 
of this Spirit in forms free from vagaries and 
false teachings is seen in the Imitation of Christ, by 
Thomas a Kempis, and in the Theologia Germania, 
and in other such writings since the Reformation. 
Augustine has put much of this spirit into his Con- 
fessions as Emerson has into his writings. 

Leaving the path of true and safe mysticism and 
the teaching concerning communion of the soul with 
a personal God, there are theories under this name 
which are wild and misleading; and there is much 
mysticism not at all connected with Christianity ; it 
is a deep tendency of soul life. "This overcoming 
of all the usual barriers between the individual and 
the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In 
mystic states we both become one with the Absolute 
and we become aware of our oneness. This is the 
everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly 
altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hindu- 
ism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mys- 
ticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring 
note, so that there is about mystical utterances an 



300 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop 
and think, and which brings it about that the mystical 
classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor 
native land. Perpetually telling of the unity of man 
with God, their speech antedates languages, and 
they do not grow old."^ 

Jacob Boehme was an erratic teacher in this line, 
a theosophist. Meister Eckhart, too, had some 
heathen elements in his teaching. Buddhism fur- 
nishes a large list of mystics. They yearn for God, 
long for deliverance from the bondage of the flesh 
and from the evil of sin; their only hope of escape 
is to lose consciousness itself and to find relief at 
last in the loss of individuality or in absorption into 
Nirvana. This to them will give calm and rest after 
"life's fitful fever.'' This is their only solace and 
hope, and is to be attained only after many self- 
flagellations, much crucifying of the body, and many 
transmigrations and rebirths. 

As one views historically the powerful efforts, 
mighty leaps, and injurious somersaults of the 
human spirit to get back to the divine, he begins to 
have a conception of the evil and damage wrought by 
sin. "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst 
thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Man 
despairing of knowing God through logical processes 
or the reason cries out, "I give up. I will try to get 
back to the lost One, the invisible and hidden One, 
my heart's Desire, by yearning, craving for him, by 
contemplation, by punishing and mutilating the body, 
reducing its life to nothing; by ascetic practices, by 

* William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 419. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 301 

ecstasies and visions, I will try to have a vision of 
him, the Desire of all nations." How far man has 
fallen through disobedience from his high natural 
position, like that of the Christ, as a friend and 
intimate of the Most High God ! The darkening of 
his reason, the blinding of his spiritual sight, the 
blunting of his conscience, the distractions of his 
mind, and the disorder and diseases in his body, how 
appalling! The history of religions reveals this 
woeful blight. 

Teaching about perfect love and divine union, 
like parts of this volume, like Wesley's Plain Ac- 
count of Christian Perfection, and some of the writ- 
ings of Fenelon and Arndt, of F. B. Meyer and 
Andrew Murray, belong to the domain of mysticism, 
a proper domain when under the orders of common 
sense and a well-balanced and well-rounded mind 
and life. The phrases ''Christian perfection" and 
''evangelical perfection" are genuine mystical 
phrases, not occurring anywhere in the Bible in this 
particular combination. In this region of theology 
there are many perfections of many grades and 
successive deaths to self and unions with the divine, 
even to complete absorption into Deity. In this 
approach of the soul to God, or transformation 
into the divine likeness, three stages are given by 
the Pseudo-Dionysius and many others; these are 
purification, illumination, and union. "These terms 
were adopted from the various grades of Eleusinian 
initiation." The subject of perfect love is near the 
border line between common sense and fanaticism 
and strange and even unintelligible speculations; it 



302 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

is peculiarly liable to be pushed beyond proper limits 
by the ardent and ignorant or the erratic and vision- 
ary. Men of warm imaginations mistake their im- 
pressions for the truth, or even for the teaching of 
the Spirit of God; many religious leaders of this 
class have claimed inspiration for themselves. To 
see the historical connection and varied and mani- 
fold developments of this kind of teaching is a 
great help ; would that I had had it years ago ! No 
Christian teacher or theological professor ever gave 
it to me despite all my questioning and searching. 

Wesley, as early as 1727, and also in 1735, while 
crossing the ocean to Georgia, was reading William 
Law's treatise on Christian Perfection, and his 
Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life ; and he was 
pleased with this teaching and under its influence 
searched the Scriptures more closely. Law was a 
mystic, translated the works of Jacob Boehme, and 
afterward went so far in this line that he was 
opposed by Wesley. Boehme's writings Wesley 
sharply denounced. His great good sense and ex- 
ceedingly well-balanced and studious mind and de- 
votion to active service, with the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, saved Wesley from running into wild 
theories in this field. Practical teachings on the 
inner life reached Wesley through another source 
in addition to such as he might become acquainted 
with through the Church of Rome. John Huss in 
the fifteenth century taught doctrines similar to 
Luther's on the necessity of faith in Christ alone, 
and urged a practical earnest religious life, opposed 
the evil practices of the old Church, and gathered 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 303 

followers known as the Bohemian Brethren, or 
''Ancient Moravians/' He was put to death and his 
followers scattered. His work did not die. Long 
afterward, about 1722, the ''Hidden Seed/' some 
"Renewed Moravian Brethren," United Brethren, 
or Moravians, came for protection to Berthelsdorf, 
Saxony, and settled on the estate of Nicholas Lewis, 
Count of Zinzendorf. There they walked closely 
with the Saviour and taught doctrines of the new 
birth and the witness of the Spirit, and the like. 
Some of these in London, Peter Boehler in partic- 
ular, helped Wesley into that faith or communion 
with God wherein he "found his heart strangely 
warmed." 

In this line of thought and feeling back of Jacob 
Boehme, the great and incoherent theosophist, w^ere 
Tauler and his teacher, Meister Eckhart, whose 
doctrines contained elements of error and pantheism. 
Eckhart was provincial of the Dominican order in 
Saxony, a "man of unquestioned purity of life" and 
"great earnestness of character," called Doctor 
Ecstaticus. Before him was Bernard of Clairvaux, 
of devout mystical nature and great attainments in 
piety. About the middle of the ninth century lived 
John Scotus Erigena, who translated into Latin 
the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius, one of which 
was known as De Mystica Theologia. Thomas 
Aquinas worked some of these doctrines into the 
Summa of his theology. The Pseudo-Dionysius 
was a writer of the sixth century A. D. who did 
much to popularize this kind of teaching in the 
church. He may be regarded as the source of 



304 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

most of the mystical teaching in theology during 
the Middle Ages. It was supposed for a time that 
his writings were those of Dionysius the Areopagite 
who ''clave unto" Paul at Athens. This proved to 
be an error ; hence he is called the Pseudo-Dionysius. 
He derived some of his teaching from the Scrip- 
tures, some from the Alexandrian school of theol- 
ogy, where Philo had mingled Greek philosophy and 
Old Testament ideas centuries before. The teaching 
reaches in Plotinus to Neoplatonism and extends 
back to the great Greek philosopher himself, Plato. 
It was the purpose of this writer to show the supe- 
riority of Christianity to the old heathen faiths and 
cults. Thus there is a commingling of heathen and 
Christian elements in the mystical doctrines that 
came down through the Middle Ages. These facts 
of history may make it easier to understand why it 
is so hard to-day to separate between the true and 
the false in these doctrines. The lineage is given as 
a warning and as opening the way for further study ; 
to know the environment and habitat of a doctrine 
or institution is useful in comprehending it, as 
knowledge of the habitat of a plant is useful to the 
botanist. For further study of this subject the 
reader may consult Vaughan, Hours with the Mys- 
tics, and Inge, Christian Mysticism. 

The experiences of these great souls are so inter- 
esting and quickening that the three following are 
quoted from Professor James, The Varieties of 
Religious Experience. The first (from pp. 413, 
414) reveals an excellent and natural spirit. The 
sweetness and sincerity of the third (from pp. 418, 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 305 

419) will appeal to many. Between these two is 
placed in addition a brief extract from the experi- 
ence of Saint Teresa (pp. 408-415) probably less 
common now and possibly less normal : 

''Saint Ignatius was a mystic, but his mysticism 
made him assuredly one of the most powerfully 
practical human engines that ever lived. Saint 
John of the Cross, writing of the intuitions and 
'touches' by which God reaches the substance of the 
soul, tells us that 'They enrich it marvelously. A 
single one of them may be sufficient to abolish at a 
stroke certain imperfections of which the soul during 
its whole life had vainly tried to rid itself, and to 
leave it adorned with virtues and loaded with super- 
natural gifts. A single one of these intoxicating 
consolations may reward it for all the labors under- 
gone in its life — even were they numberless. In- 
vested with an invincible courage, filled with an 
impassioned desire to suffer for its God, the soul 
then is seized with a strange torment — that of not 
being allowed to suffer enough.' " 

Saint Teresa says: "In the orison of union the 
soul is fully awake as regards God, but wholly 
asleep as regards things of this world and in respect 
of herself. During the short time the union lasts, 
she is as it were deprived of every feeling, and, if 
she would, she could not think of any single thing." 
"Often, infirm and wrought upon with dreadful 
pains before the ecstasy, the soul emerges from it 
full of health and admirably disposed for action, . . . 
as if God had willed that the body itself, already 
obedient to the souFs desires, should share in the 



3o6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

soul's happiness. . . . The soul after such a favor 
is animated with a degree of courage so great that 
if at that moment its body should be torn to pieces 
for the cause of God, it would feel nothing but the 
liveliest comfort. Then it is that promises and 
heroic resolutions spring up in profusion in us, 
soaring desires, horror of the world, and the clear 
perception of our proper nothingness. . . . What 
empire is comparable to that of a soul who, from 
this sublime summit to which God has raised her, 
sees all the things of earth beneath her feet, and 
is captivated by no one of them? How ashamed 
she is of her former attachments ! How amazed at 
her blindness ! . . . She knows that in despising the 
dignity of their rank for the pure love of God, they 
[Christians] would do more good in a single day 
than they would effect in ten years by preserving 
it . . . She laughs at herself that there should ever 
have been a time in her life when she made any 
case of money, when she ever desired it. . . . O, if 
human beings might only agree together to regard it 
as so much useless mud, what harmony would then 
reign in the world ! With what friendship we would 
all treat each other if our interest in honor and in 
money could but disappear from the earth ! For my 
own part, I feel as if it would be a remedy for all 
our ills." "But how, you will repeat, can one have 
such certainty in respect to what one does not see? 
This question I am powerless to answer. These are 
secrets of God's omnipotence which it does not 
appertain to me to penetrate. All that I know is 
that I tell the truth ; and I shall never believe that 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 307 

any soul who does not possess this certainty has ever 
been really united to God." Professor James says 
(p. 412) : '*The deliciousness of some of these 
states seems to be beyond anything known in ordi- 
nary consciousness. It evidently involves organic 
sensibilities, for it is spoken of as something too 
extreme to be borne, and as verging on bodily pain." 

The following beautiful statement of God's in- 
dwelling presence is quoted by Professor James 
from Wilfred Monod, who takes it from the manu- 
script "of an old man" : 

"Jesus has come to take up his abode in my heart. 
It is not so much a habitation, an association, as a 
sort of fusion. O, new and blessed life! Life 
which becomes each day more luminous. . . . The 
wall before me, dark a few moments since, is splen- 
did at this hour because the sun shines on it. 
Wherever its rays fall they light up a conflagration 
of glory; the smallest speck of glass sparkles, each 
grain of sand emits fire; even so there is a royal 
song of triumph in my heart because the Lord is 
there. My days succeed each other: yesterday a 
blue sky; to-day a clouded sun; a night filled with 
strange dreams; but as soon as the eyes open, and 
I regain consciousness and seem to begin life again, 
it is always the same figure before me, always the 
same presence filling my heart. . . . Formerly the 
day was dulled by the absence of the Lord. I used 
to wake invaded by all sorts of sad impressions, and 
I did not find him on my path. To-day he is with 
me; and the light cloudiness which covers things is 
not an obstacle to my communion with him, I feel 



3o8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

the pressure of his hand, I feel something else which 
fills me with a serene joy; shall I dare to speak it 
out? Yes, for it is the true expression of what I 
experience. The Holy Spirit is not merely making 
me a visit; it is no mere dazzling apparition which 
may from one moment to another spread its wings 
and leave me in my night, it is a permanent habita- 
tion. He can depart only if he takes me with him. 
More than that: he is not other than myself; he is 
one with me. It is not a juxtaposition, it is a pene- 
tration, a profound modification of my nature, a 
new manner of my being.'' 

To sum up these points, the Christian desiring 
symmetrical growth and more complete likeness to 
his Master should follow the Greek maxim, ''Know 
thyself"; then know the Saviour and through the 
Word know his power to save ; supply that which is 
lacking. If a man or a woman finds himself inclined 
to emotional states, has little taste for any religious 
service except the hallelujahs of the camp meeting, 
delights almost exclusively in the Gospel of John, 
the Imitation of Christ, and other such writings, he 
should balance up with practical work and study. 
He should get a definition, accurate and useful, now 
and then ; study up some great doctrine as in Paul's 
epistles or in systematic theology until it assumes 
definite outlines. Let him enlarge and clarify his 
idea of God, of the incarnation, and of the atone- 
ment; let him also engage in a larger amount of 
practical Christian work. If it is the business of 
some man, as a professor of metaphysics, to use the 
speculative reason, till it is overdeveloped like the 



GROWTH' AFTER FULL SALVATION 309 

blacksmith's arm ; if with this his taste for an exact 
ritual or form of religious service, with nothing 
spontaneous or lively in it, has become fastidious or 
overrefined; if his specialty has dwarfed other 
powers, as Darwin confessed his scientific studies 
had diminished his appreciation of music and pleas- 
ure in it, he should cultivate the mystical side of his 
nature. Stir up the emotional ; go into those meet- 
ings where it abounds and is free ; take a lively part 
himself. He should meet busy practical men, meet 
laboring men, even in their unions, and engage in 
practical work for common people, as the Salvation 
Army does. He will come to appreciate the value 
of enthusiasm in religion; he will gain sympathy for 
nonbookish men, even for men in the slums and in 
the gutter. This must suffice to show how each 
Christian after being made perfect in love may gain 
fuller and more symmetrical development, become 
poised in spirit, more like the Christ, and grow into 
grace "till we all come to the stature of a perfect 
man in Christ Jesus," becoming perfect in the sense 
of ideally perfect, even if that is beyond this life. 
In this way he will be "perfecting holiness in the 
fear of God." 

SOME SPECIFIC POINTS ON GROWTH 

Some specific points on growth after full salvation 
are presented in addition to those already mentioned. 
This should include what the Christian does for 
God and what God does for him. To treat this 
fully further examination of religious biography is 
necessary. 



310 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

Growth in religious and moral knowledge and 
wisdom forms a vast and ever-increasing line of de- 
velopment never to end in this life. "Search the 
Scriptures"; *7^sus increased in wisdom." It is 
increase not merely in astronomical or chemical 
knowledge, but in a knowledge of God, his nature 
and work in history and in redeeming man. This 
will include some knowledge of his works in nature ; 
more especially knowledge of his holy will as reg- 
ulative of human conduct; and ethical knowledge 
as to how one should act in the various situations 
of life. A knowledge of a ''mutable morality" is 
needed; and great advance in the discriminating 
power of conscience as well as in its impulsive 
power. This will diminish the number of blunders 
in working for God or the sins through ignorance. 
The fully saved man should endeavor to know how 
in detail he will treat his neighbor when he ''loves 
him as himself." How will he treat the tramp, the 
vicious, the children of the tenements, and his em- 
ployer or his workmen; this will take one far into 
the intricacies of commercial and business life to- 
day. For uncultivated people, made perfect in love, 
with no early opportunities, there is great need of 
growth in moral discernment and in ideals of life 
and culture to enable them to stand in outward 
polish and behavior in business and social life on a 
level with highly cultured and conscientious, honor- 
able and truthful people, who are not Christians in 
name. To be blameless is not the same as to be 
faultless; after one is blameless and harmless he 
should work toward the state of being faultless. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 311 

The Christian, made perfect in love or not, is 
frequently — yet not so frequently as in earlier years 
— doing things in his zeal which God does not want ; 
he often fails also to do that which God requires; 
he is ignorant of God's way. He should, unlike the 
Jews in Rom. 10. 2, acquire a zeal of God which is 
according to knowledge. To understand the will of 
God objectively, to discern spirits as well as to 
acquire an instinct for receiving and following the 
leadings of the Spirit, is an important part of de- 
velopment after full salvation. No one should fail 
to esteem this. Because of failure to understand 
God's will in these ways differences arise among 
very holy people, and divisions among them and in 
the church; possibly suspicions of others' motives 
and bitterness of spirit. Further visitations of the 
Spirit of God, epochs of uplift, help in the crises 
and emergencies of life, will come from God as 
needed. 

The education of the feelings is an important 
work for the fully saved man. One may choose 
right ends long before his ethical emotions have 
been trained so as to respond spontaneously in 
proper degree to calls for mercy or to scenes of woe, 
and to commands of God, or to be stirred by crimes 
and injustice. The capacity for moral indignation 
against sin should be cultivated. To feel righteous 
anger leading to proper action in the presence of 
great wrongs ; to be melted at the same time with 
grief over the sinner, like the Son of God ; to secure 
and evince the proper amount of tenderness and of 
severity and just rigor in concrete cases, is no easy 



312 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

acquisition. With this will come an enlargement of 
sympathy for the young, the old, the frail, and the 
sin-stricken, with an unbending maintenance of the 
moral law, which means a deeper insight into the 
heart of God. Strive toward the goal where every 
quality or grace of a perfect character is present; 
where each faculty and quality is exercised in nor- 
mal intensity; none falls short or runs to excess. 
Work toward that state where not merely propensity 
to old sins is gone, but susceptibility also is removed 
and the saint enjoys real freedom in the fullest 
sense. The holy man would take great delight in 
that state where there are no internal hindrances 
from infirmity or sin-crippled faculties, or few of 
them, to a perfect obedience to the will of God. 
While he may not attain to this at the present time, 
many portions of God's Word urge him toward it. 
Some big steps toward it are possible now through 
the aid of the Healer and Redeemer. In New 
Brunswick and Nova Scotia the tide rises very 
high. A river in the former province flows like a 
swift torrent into the sea. When the tide rises a con- 
flict or battle ensues between the movement of the 
ocean drawn by the attraction of sun and moon, 
heaven's forces, and the current of the river's waters 
drawn downward by earth's gravitation. There are 
collisions and battlings of the mighty current, eddies 
and swirls innumerable, till gradually the tide of old 
ocean sweeps on in its irresistible power and the 
waters of the river are forced back. The salt water 
has been known to penetrate fourscore miles up- 
stream. So it is with the devout follower of Jesus. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 313 

Old proclivities and habits drag him down; old 
modes of action, habits of thought, and old paths of 
emotional reaction pull him away from God and 
righteousness ; these are but the current in the river 
of individual and race life. The mighty tides of 
God's love and power when admitted into the soul 
sweep this back and give complete and permanent 
victory to his trusting and obedient children. The 
attraction of the mighty magnet Christ Jesus can 
lift up the obedient seeking soul in spite of the down- 
ward gravitation of innate tendencies and of past 
sinful habits and practices. "And this is the vic- 
tory that overcometh the world, even our faith"; 
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the 
world." 

The mature disciple should learn to endure trials 
and persecutions as Paul did his beatings and im- 
prisonments; learn to find support in affliction as 
Charles G. Finney did at the death of his wife. 
How wondrously the Holy Spirit helped here ! Mr. 
Finney says: "During this winter (1843-44) the 
Lord gave my soul a very thorough overhauling, and 
a fresh baptism of his Spirit. ... I then had a 
deeper view of what was implied in consecration 
to God than ever before ; ... so deep and perfect a 
resting in the will of God I had never before 
known. . . . The Lord taught me so much of the 
meaning of the Bible, of Christ's relations and 
power and willingness, that I often found myself 
saying to him, T had not known or conceived that 
any such thing was true.' I realized what is meant 
by the saying that 'He is able to do exceeding 



314 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

abundantly above all that we ask or think/ It 
seemed to me that the passage, 'My grace is suffi- 
cient for thee/ meant so much that it was wonderful 
I had never understood it before; I found myself 
exclaiming, 'Wonderful ! wonderful ! wonderful !' " 
At this time the death of his beloved wife plunged 
him into great grief ; but God so wrought upon his 
mind that, he says, 'Trom a certain hour my sorrow 
on account of my loss was gone forever ; I no longer 
thought of my wife as dead, but as alive and in the 
midst of the glories of heaven. ... I experienced it 
[heaven] in my own soul; I have never to this day 
lost the blessing of these views. "^ This comfort 
and some of these steps of progress are also to be 
reached by those who are not yet conscious of hav- 
ing attained inll salvation. Late in his life Alfred 
Cookman said: 'T used to maintain that the blood 
was sufficient, but I am coming to know that tribula- 
tion brings us to the blood that cleanseth." "After 
the washing, or purifying, there are other processes 
used by the power of the Spirit of God in smoothing 
and adorning and perfecting our characters." His 
image must become visible in the disciple. 

A department of never-ending growth is in acquir- 
ing skill in service. At least three questions about 
salvation confront the sinful man: (i) What must 
I do to be saved? The answer results in justifica- 
tion and regeneration. (2) What must I be, and 
know, to be saved ? The answer gives full salvation 
with provision for its lasting extension throughout 
the being. (3) How shall I serve, or save others, 

* Autobiography, p. 373. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 315 

after I am saved ? The answer is God's calling or 
appointment to a field of work. Every man made 
perfect in love longs to do definite work for his 
Saviour in some field. He should select some work, 
prepare for it as well as his situation allows, and 
persist in it. This is important to guard against 
the errors of a passive and contemplative mysticism 
and to save one from spending too much time in 
introspection, from leaning to sentimental piety, 
and from merely seeking and enjoying one's re- 
ligious health, which is a form of selfishness. The 
Christian should develop skill in some field of prac- 
tical effort; preaching, missionary work, Sunday 
school work, nursing, or farming, or doing other 
business for the Lord. The vast field of social serv- 
ice and of educational and political effort is calling 
loudly for workers to-day ; the true Christian must, 
if not disabled, do something for the physical, mental, 
social, and religious improvement of his fellows. 
Somewhere along this way one will learn the mean- 
ing of travail for souls, a great experience, as in 
Gal. 4. 19. He will learn again and again, always 
with deeper insight, the great lesson of the cross, 
as it applies to him in his personal life ; the principle 
of sacrifice in redeeming men, and the need of in- 
tercessors in a world of sinners. And in his hours 
in the garden of Gethsemane the presence of the 
Holy Spirit will strengthen and cheer him in a 
marvelous manner. Thus are men sustained who 
direct great religious corporations and societies and 
upon whom often comes the "care of all the 
churches." 



3i6 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

A glance forward to the end or final consumma- 
tion of the believer's redemption may not be out of 
place. ''For this purpose the Son of God was mani- 
fested, that he might destroy the works of the 
devil" (i John 3. 8). Obedient disciples are con- 
tinually taking steps in the appropriation of this 
great salvation. Man is to be restored finally to the 
moral image of God in Christ; this includes the 
perfection of manhood, the full realization of God's 
idea of a man. The complete rectification of char- 
acter in its secondary aspect must take place. Sin- 
caused infirmities and blindness of mind and dull- 
ness of heart, a limited recovery from the "mind 
void of judgment/' or conscience that was seared, 
will no longer stand in the way of a perfect obe- 
dience to a perfectly comprehended will of the 
Father, when the kingdom of God is fully come. 

The complete annihilation of every moral evil and 
every weakness and disability sin has brought to the 
race will some time be accomplished for those who 
submit to God; death itself will be vanquished. 
Mankind will "not all sleep, but" they will "all be 
changed." After this life the resurrection and 
glorification await the Christian. Jesus had a mortal 
body in this life that, like the race he would save 
and uplift, he might suffer and die. After his 
death and resurrection he had a "spiritual body." 
After his resurrection or change, not before, the 
devout follower of Jesus will have a "spiritual 
body," incorruptible. The work begun in regenera- 
tion, carried on in holiness and progressive trans- 
formation into Christlikeness, will have its final com- 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 317 

pletion and end. "Whom he justified, them he also 
glorified." 

A word should be said on the 

COMPREHENSIVENESS OF RELIGION 

''All religions, if traced back, will be found rooted 
in a single fact, the soul's instinctive, fundamental, 
ineradicable feeling or conviction, that it stands in 
a real relation to Deity, and that this relation is 
capable of conscious and continuous realization by 
action, the adoration of an idol, the burning of a 
beast, the offering of a prayer." ''The Christian 
religion is the normal bearing of man in and toward 
God." The last sentence is substantially the state- 
ment of Dr. W. F. Warren to his pupils. Other 
religions are attempts after such a bearing. One 
result of the normal bearing is friendship between 
man and God. God is the object of religion; man is 
the subject of religion; each giving and receiving 
something: God giving life and self-revelation; God 
receiving worship and service; man receiving pro- 
tection, light, and life; man giving obedience, hom- 
age, and service. Thus man both manifests and 
satisfies his feeling of absolute dependence and of 
absolute obligation. 

Religion includes the following : A. What may be 
called a subjective side for the individual. This 
includes the personal life between man and God ; the 
life of prayer, worship, Bible study, and service; the 
inner life. It means the innumerable phases of 
spiritual life as portrayed in the Bible, in hymns 
and other religious poetry and in devotional liter- 



3i8 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

ature, with all the experiences of belief and doubt, 
triumph and defeat, sorrow in the valley and ex- 
altation on the mountain top. It also includes the 
outer or ethical personal life. In actual life this 
individual side and the social side are always 
blended inextricably because no one ordinarily lives 
his religious life alone like a hermit; man is known 
to us only as a member of society ; his environment 
and age act upon him and he reacts upon them. This 
distinction between the individual side and the social 
side is useful and remains true although the indi- 
vidual participates in the social side; because the 
many do not participate in the personal life peculiar 
to each individual. That is the proper and exclusive 
possession of each soul. A fighting against this 
personal life through unbelief, or a repudiation of 
it, is skepticism or atheism. This opposition as 
truly as submission to God proves that man is a 
religious being. Such persons deal not with this 
personal life with God except to negative it; they 
may often show kindness toward neighbors or pos- 
sess ethical life in some beautiful manifestations. A 
brief cross section of this personal life after re- 
generation and some progress at an epoch called the 
experience of perfect love or full salvation, with a 
few remarks on the subsequent growth, is all of the 
religious life treated in this book. 

B. Religion includes an objective side; this is 
the social side, thought of as applying to people 
collectively. Briefly, it includes creed, code, cult, 
and church, with allied institutions. 

Religion as doctrine teaching theology — creed ; re- 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 319 

ligion as law teaching systems of ethics — code; re- 
Hgion as worship or cult embracing ritual, ceremony, 
sacrifices, prayer, and song, and usually architec- 
ture and art : these essential elements of religion may 
be communicated through oral teaching only or 
manifest themselves in a literature, as in sacred 
books or a Bible. Religion combining the above in 
outward organized form of government and admin- 
istering a system of ecclesiastical machinery, is the 
church ; founded by the Holy Spirit, pervaded more 
or less by the same Spirit; preserving the facts of 
religion and revelation, its history; comprehending 
in itself the worship or cult; promulgating and en- 
forcing, sometimes with the power of the sword, its 
law ; teaching — oftentimes compelling belief by force 
— its dogma, or theology; evangelizing the world, 
rescuing others high and low, making disciples of all 
nations, using its machinery and spiritual forces as 
a means of self -propagation and to a smaller degree 
of the propagation of the Spirit of Christ. 

Associated with the church, or organized religion, 
as arms of activity are the school ; in modern times, 
the religious press, forms of ministering to the 
mind ; the hospital, with orphanages, homes for the 
infirm and aged, and the like, forms of ministering 
to the body; young people's and countless other 
societies, guilds, and brotherhoods, and other multi- 
tudinous forms of service. 

Beyond this circle of the professedly religious is 
the indirect influence of religion upon society, ap- 
pearing in countless ways, improving education, law, 
including international law and rules of war, forms 



320 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



and practices of governments and their citizens, 
ameliorating evils in social life, as slavery, intem- 
perance, relation of the sexes, condition of the work- 
ing classes, of the oppressed of all sorts and con- 
ditions, and molding and uplifting civilization. Some 
of the greatness of this influence is seen in modern 
charity and in philanthropic and reform movements. 

Bishop John H. Vincent says: ''There are four 
phases of religion: ecclesiastical; doctrinal or theo- 
retical; subjective, or inner life; altruistic, or mis- 
sions and rescue work of all kinds. Happy is he 
who can hold these in true proportion." 

Professor Harnack describes the individual or 
subjective side in answer to the question, "What 
is evangelical religion?" "i. Religion is a matter of 
the heart and life. 2. The Christian faith is wrought 
within us by God himself, and consists in childlike 
confidence in him. 3. It is confidence because of 
Christ and in Christ, and hence it is also discipleship 
of Jesus. 4. It establishes a direct free relationship 
between God and each individual soul, which en- 
dures steadfastly even unto eternity." 

The preceding may be represented in an outline 
or diagram : 



O 



Subjective side: for ] 
the individual only. f 



PERSONAL 
LIFE 



Objective side; social 
side: for the individ- 
ual in common with 
the many. 



COLLECTIVE 
LIFE 



Inner life: the totality 
of religious experience, 
as prayer, private wor- 
ship, and service be- 
tween man and God. 

Outer life; ethical con- 
duct and service be- 
tween man and man. 

Creed, doctrine, and 
theology; code, law or 
ethics; cult or worship; 
church; allied institu- 
tions and societies; in- 
direct influence of re- 
. ligion. 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 321 

All Christianity represented in this scheme, this 
mighty expansive religious force, in all its compre- 
hensiveness, usefulness, and glory, took its rise and 
inspiration in the eternal love of God and was mani- 
fested in the self -giving and self -revelation of God 
the Father, made in the self-sacrificing life of his 
Son, Jesus of Nazareth. This is the point of origin 
enlarged now to modern Christendom; this is the 
root whence this great tree has sprung, the tree of 
individual and organized vital Christianity filling 
the earth. It has reached to heaven. ''After this I 
beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man 
could number, . . . stood before the throne, and be- 
fore the Lamb, . . . and cried with a loud voice, say- 
ing, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the 
throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood 
round about the throne, . . . and fell before the 
throne on their faces, and worshiped God, saying, 
Amen : Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanks- 
giving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto 
our God forever and ever. Amen." The source or 
the beginning of Christianity was, in the eyes of the 
world, small and weak; the whole divine life in its 
perfection was contained within the corporeity of 
one man. It has expanded, enlarged, and widened, 
and now is flowing on like a great world river such 
as Ezekiel saw. When one has expanded his mind, 
enriched his life with thoughts of all this, has stud- 
ied his Bible and read Church history, fed on the 
central doctrines as developed by the greatest 
thinkers, and filled his soul with facts concerning 
the progress and triumph of Christianity in the 



322 AN EPOCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

world; when he has exalted and purified his spirit 
by communion with the saints and by inhaling the 
atmosphere perfumed with their noble and self- 
sacrificing deeds, he will be amazed at the possi- 
bilities of growth and usefulness open to the man 
whose heart has been filled with the fullness of God. 
He will see that experience in its true relation to a 
vast religious life that is filling the world. **0 the 
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowl- 
edge of God ! How unsearchable are his judgments, 
and his ways past finding out! . . . For of him, and 
through him, and to him, are all things : to whom be 
glory forever. Amen." 

The following is presented as the belief and ex- 
perience of Phillips Brooks in later life; it shows 
some of the heights on which great men of God 
have walked: ^'Many noblest souls have felt what 
they could not describe, such a mysterious union be- 
tween their personal life and the deep spirit which 
works in all things that they have known that the 
unit of their existence and their action was not the 
simple personality, which In the tightest and most 
literal sense they called themselves, but was some- 
thing more and greater. Body is not the man, but 
body with soul flowing through It. So I am not this 
compact single group of powers ; I am this kept in 
communion with the heart of all things, fed by the 
Spirit of universal life. Translate this mystical 
floating persuasion Into the terms of religion, and 
it becomes the conviction that God and man are so 
near together, so belong to one another, that not a 
man by himself, but a man and God, is the true unit 



GROWTH AFTER FULL SALVATION 323 

of being and power. The human will in such 
sympathetic submission to the divine will that the 
divine will may flow into it, yet never destroying its 
individuality; I so working under God, so working 
with God, that when the result stands forth I dare 
not claim it for my personal achievement; my 
thought filled with the thought of One who I know 
is different from me, while he is unspeakably close 
to me, as the western sky to-night will be filled with 
the sunset. Are not these consciousnesses of which 
all souls who have ever been truly religious have 
sometimes been aware ? ^It seemed good to the Holy 
Ghost and to us,' wrote the apostles to the brethren 
at Antioch. 'I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me,' wrote Paul to the Galatians. Who has not felt 
it? It was God and I making one unit of power 
that conquered my great temptation, that did my 
hard work, that solved my problem, that bore my 
disappointment. Let me not say that it was I alone ; 
that robs the work of breadth and depth and height, 
and limits it to what I know of my poor faculty. 
No; it was this active unity of God and me, his 
nature filling my nature with its power through my 
submissive will. It is not something unnatural ; it is 
most natural. I do not truly realize myself till I 
become joined with, filled with him. This is the 
religious thought of character. Men may call it 
mystical or transcendental; a thousand things that 
seem dreamlike to the great majority are going to be 
known as the great moving powers of the world." 



INDEX 



Absolute standard explained, 

47- 
Acquired or added sin, 8i, 122 ; 

Bible on, 125; deliverance 

from, 126, 199. 
Adamic perfection, 35, 112. 
Antinomianism, 40, 274, 293. 
Article of Religion, seventh, 79. 
Attitudes toward the moral 

law, 46. 
Authority in religion, 18, 30. 

Beet, J. A., "holy" as used in 

the Bible, 171; holiness more 

than purity, 208 ; the abiding 

victory, 208. 
Bent to sinning, freedom from, 

99, 118, 120, 126, 199. 
Biblical usage of "holy" and 

"sanctify," 170. 
Biological view of sin, 75; of 

holiness, 78, 204, 211, 282. 
Bowne, B. P,, good will not 

sufficient, 42. 
Brooks, Phillips, experience, 

322. 

Character described, 178. 

Common denominator in re- 
ligious experience, 3. 

Comprehensiveness of religion, 
290, 317; in outline, 320. 

Conscience becoming enlight- 
ened and sensitive, 139, 241, 

243' 310- 

Consciousness, not able to tes- 
tify to a theory, 109; spon- 
taneous or trained, 250. 

Constitution or nature defined, 
177. 

Conversion, 181. 

Cremona violin, 238. 

Curry, Daniel, on victory over 
sin, no. 

Dangers for the fully saved 
man, 240-244. 



Deficiencies possible to the 

fully saved man, 248. 
Depravity. See Inbred sin. 
Devil's sin, 67. 
Differentiating point between 

regeneration and entire sanc- 

tification, 205. 
Doing and being, 215. 
Dualism resolved into unity, 

231. 

Earl, A. B., experience, 233. 
Emotion vs. intellect, 252. 
Emotional side of religion, 258- 

262. 
Emotions, education of, 311. 
Enthusiasm, 274, 276. 
Eradication or suppression. 

Errors, 274. 

Errors of judgment, 58. 

Essenes, 294. 

Ethical standards and conduct 
wanting, 275. 

Evil, noticed after reception of 
full salvation, 241. 

Evolution and sanctification, 
217. 

Experience of Daniel Steele, 
107, 108, 214; of A. B. Earl, 
233: of Saint John of the 
Cross, 305 ; of vSaint Teresa, 
305; of an "old man," 307; 
of Charles G. Finney, 313; 
of Phillips Brooks, 322. 

Fitness for heaven, 146; Fair- 
bairn on, 152. 

Foster, R. S., on immutable 
law, 36; on improper con- 
duct or sin through igno- 
rance, 52; on depravity, 93; 
on regeneration, 185; on the 
problem of sanctification, 
186, 190; on the mode of 
regeneration or sanctifica- 
tion, 253. 



325 



326 



INDEX 



Full salvation, witness of the 
Spirit, 112, 203, 244; psy- 
chologically described, 168; 
names, 170, 267; human 
side, 191; growth toward, 
193; divine side, 198, 201; 
period, 204; positive side 
more important than nega- 
tive, 205 ; when it is full, 212; 
as doing and being, 215; 
from the standpoint 9f evo- 
lution, 217; as dualism re- 
solved into unity, 231; ap- 
pearance of weakness after- 
ward, 240-243 ; emotional 
concomitants, 241, 254-262; 
what it is not, 248; inde- 
finable part, 252, 262; essen- 
tial elements, 263; in brief 
outline, 265, 266, 269; amis- 
sible, 268. 

God, ideals and aims of, 14; 
holiness of, 16. 

Good will, needed, 29, 32; not 
sufEcient, 42. 

Growth, toward holiness, 193- 
195 ; in moral discernment of 
conscience, 241 ; endless, 280, 
310, 316; specific points on, 
309. 

Heart, meaning of, here, 180. 

Heaven, fitness for, 146. 

Holiness, condition of man 
fallen from, 112; lack of 
agreement on, 114. See also 
Full salvation, and Sanctifi- 
c at ion, entire. 

Holy Spirit, witness of, 112, 
244. 

Inborn tendency to lawlessness, 
freedom from, obligatory 
upon all, 118, 120. 

Ignorance, degrees of, 59; of 
God and righteousness par- 
tially dispelled, 139. 

Inbred' sin (S), as in seventh 
Article of Religion, 79; de- 
scribed, 80; names for, 84; 
as in Westminster Confes- 
sion, 85 ; in what sense sin, 
87; nature of, 92, 300; an 
erroneous view, 97; removal 



of, 98, iiS, 119, 120, 199, 
236-238; partly removable 
at regeneration, 133; what 
is left after tendency to dis- 
obedience is destroyed, 141; 
or sin-eilects: when is de- 
liverance therefrom com- 
plete? 145, 316; (Si) intensi- 
fied by personal conduct, 8 1 , 
122. 

Infants, salvation of, 147, 151. 

Infirmities, 158, 312, 316; ex- 
amples of, 165. 

Intellect and emotions, 252. 

James, William, on mysticism, 
299 ; on experiences of saints, 
304- 

Jurist's definition of law, 22. 

Justification, 181, 184. 

Ladd, George T., on disposi- 
tion, 132; on temperament, 
282. 

Law, of love, stated, 7 ; a true, 
exemplified, 25; for the 
state, investigation should 
precede enactment, 26; of 
love, not lowered, 34, 36; 
of cause and effect ignored, 
277. 

Laws of intellect, 13. 

Lincoln on obedience to law, 
32. 

Living without sin, 72, 250. 

Moral law, involved in the 
being, 9, 18; not lowered, 34, 

36- 
Mystical union, 231. 
Mysticism, 293, 297. 

Neander, A., the term ** flesh " 
in Paul's epistles, 95. 

Obedience to law, 30. 

**01d man," Paul's term, 83, 

123. 
Original sin. See Inbred sin. 

Pardon, ground of, in Christ, 

35, 37. 
Perfect love, marks of, 202, 

212; sole principle for the 

organization of society, 228. 

See also Full salvation. 



INDEX 



327 



Perfection, evangelical and 
ideal, 39, 267, 301. 

Perplexities often confronting 
the fully saved, 240-244. 

Pharisees, 294. 

Pietism, 292. 

Positive side of full salvation 
to be emphasized, 205. 

Propensity to sin and suscepti- 
bility, 116. 

Propositions for adoption, 269. 

Rationalism, 292. 

Redemption, its final consum- 
mation, 145, 217. 

Regeneration, 181: divine side, 
184. 

Relative and absolute standard 
explained, 47. 

Religion, the eternal, 6, 295 ; 
comprehensiveness of, 290, 
317; its meaning in outline, 
320. 

Religious development, three 
great phases of, 294, 296. 

Religious emotion, value of, 
254-262. 

Religious life, proportion in, 
291, 296, 308. 

Removal of acquired sinful 
states, 126, 199, 236—238. 

Removal of inbred sin, 98, 118, 
119, 120, 199; what is re- 
moved? 119. 

Sadducees, 294. 

Saint John of the Cross, ex- 
perience, 305. 

Saint Teresa, experience, 305. 

Salvation only through Christ, 
16' 35 » 37 » "two conceptions, 
44. 

Sanctification, as often used in 
Bible, 151, 170; meaning of, 
169; begun, 170; meaning of 
in Catechism, 170; names, 
170, 267; problem of, 179, 
186. 

Sanctification, entire, psy- 
chologically described, 177; 
human side, 191 ; divine side, 
198. See also Full salva- 
tion. 

Science defined, 7 



Sin, definitions, 48; (Ai) vol- 
untary, 50; (A2) through ig- 
norance, 50: (A3) the Chris- 
tian's falls, 61; (A4) through 
ignoring authority, 63 ; (As) 
or failures of the irresponsi- 
ble, 65; of Satan, 67; un- 
pardonable, 68 ; material def- 
initions, 70; three steps into, 
70; living without, 50, 72; 
biological view, 75. 

Sin (S), inbred, 49, 80. 

Sin (Si), inbred sin enlarged, 
81. 

Social environment productive 
of sin, 124. 

Statute law, relation to moral 
law, 24. 

Steele, Daniel, on the sub- 
conscious, 107, 108; ex- 
perience, 107, 108, 214; in- 
firmities and heaven, 147; 
"sanctified" as applied to 
the justified, 172 ; growth to- 
ward entire sanctification, 
193; work of the Sanctifier, 
194, 201 ; on the ethical full- 
ness, 210; illustrating unity 
in the soul, 237. 

Subconscious, the, 106, 201. 

Subconscious weakness becom- 
ing evident, 242. 

Sufis, 295. 

Suppression or eradication, 

153- 
Susceptibility to sin and pro- 
pensity, 116. 

Temperament, changed, 139; 

described, 282 ; among the 

apostles, 289; in religious 

denominations, 290. 
Ten Commandments, 21. 
Tendency to sin or lawlessness 

removable, 99, 118, 126, 199. 
Tennyson's lines, 231. 
Transmission of good traits, 

96, 136. 
Two standards, 40. 



Unio mystica, 205, 231, 239. 
Unity in heart and life as en- 
tire sanctification, 231. 
Unpardonable sin^ the, 68, 



328 



INDEX 



Wesley, John, on use of the 
word "sin," 50; on sin im- 
properly so called, 50, 52, 
54; on line between sin and 
weakness, 1 1 6 ; on extinction 
of inbred sin, 154; "sancti- 
fied" as applied to the justi- 
fied, 172; describing entire 
sanctification simply, 206 ; 



on teachableness, 279; and 

Law's Christian Perfection, 

301. 
Westminster Confession, 85. 
Will, defined, 14; its nature 

modified by its acts, 211. 
Witness of the Spirit, 112, 203, 

244. 



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